As someone who is battling with a strong case of what to me seems like narcissism or serious narcissistic traits and is now actually trying to do something about them, I just want to say this to all of you: when we yell at your, we are not mad at you. We are mad at our inability to see the world correctly, with our out-of-touchness with it, with our suddenly realized perception of it that it is our own and not anyone else's, and the fact that we genuinely do not know what to do about it. We project ourselves onto and attack you for the same reasons this guy listed above, but also because since we believe you are like us, that you are attacking us with the same venom that we would: we have no concept of anything but ourselves because of how stuck in it due to all the walls we have that don't allow love in. Each of our reasons for why that wall is there is different, but that is what is causing us so much grief. It is what I realized the first times I was able to allow love into me: that sudden feeling that this whole inside me is suddenly filling up with a connection that I thought was dangerous, that would allow me to be "just like them" and vulnerable to an attack if it were to come. I don't know what or if anything instilled this fear in me, but we are battling with this wall, whatever caused it, and our inability to both want to bring it down before realizing that "we shouldn't" before realizing "we should." I don't mean this to be a grief post, but for this to be a way of me saying I'm sorry to anyone I have hurt. I know they will likely never read this, but this is also to any victims of people who are like us. Be mad at us and distance yourself from us if you can, but also realize our insults are not truly aimed at you. They are aimed at the projection of ourselves that we are secretly placing onto you, but not even we can often times see that. Do not forgive us unless we have shown that we are truly trying to forgive ourselves, and even then, hold a righteous grudge. Never let us forget the damage we have done if you choose to keep us in your lives, but also be careful not to become us. It's correct to hold us accountable, but sometimes trauma lingers over into every part of your life. Seek a support network, whether you are still with the narcissist or not. It sounds insane, but the narcissist does not truly want to destroy. They want to heal, but their methods of healing involve destruction that they cannot perceive because of how disconnected from anything but their own selves that they are. I hope this did not ramble too much as I just sort of went off, but hopefully some victims and recovering narcissists can find some peace if they read this.
i have narcissistic traits too but from bpd, someone with narcissistic personality disorder would lack empathy for what they've done and wouldn't fear love or tell people to stay away, i was raised by narcissists and it wasn't random lashing out from unhealed trauma, it was calculated and evil. maybe look into bpd, outwards and inwards bursts of rage is one symptom & it overlaps heavily with narcissistic traits. men with bpd can be mislabeled as having npd
@@endmite Well the thing is, narcissism has a "come down" or "snap to reality" for some sufferers, meaning they actually get, for a brief moment, a look into just how insane they are. They cognitively dissociate from their insecurities to the point where they often don't even realize they are even there, but once this moment hits them, they "get it." There are a few self-aware narcissist UA-camrs who attest to this, and online, if you read about other ones who have mentioned they were able to put the past behind them, they all tell you that this really did come down to insecurities. It's just that they turned their fears into "organized rage," if you will. And maybe I am BPD, but I noticed I matched with almost all of NPD's symptoms when I looked it up. I have a severe lack of empathy (though not completely), I am sensitive to criticism, I do have grandiose fantasies, compliments absolutely floor me, I don't handle stress well, I do often times say "I hate myself," I have felt superior to others, and I do need to at least feel recognized by others, otherwise I get fearful of what it is they might say. I need admiration from them in order to feel "secure," not powerful. Hence why I never diagnosed myself as this for a long time, and also why many narcissists are unaware. The other thing is just how "right" I thought I was, not arrogant. But now I am gradually telling myself that I need to understand others, not say they are ridiculous for holding on to people they hold deer that are causing them stress.
What a life.... Greatly appreciate the honesty and freedom of thought. Wish my Ex was at the point of her journey she could have flowed outwardly in such a manor. Realize a lot of pain I was unintentionally causing her...
Dr. Gabor Mate's method helped me address triggers, release the trappings of my shame spiral, have compassion for myself and less dependence on others for stabilization of self-worth. He has a lot of material out there, including videos on YT. Doesn't have a channel, mostly seminars and interviews but good content, imo.
People can be perfectly imperfect... Relationships are about growing and learning and challenging each other to become the best version of ourselves. What is the point of life otherwise? Hedonism? Life quickly becomes boring if you know everything and are perfect.
The biggest issue I had with the narcissist I dated was that if I made a complaint about something he did, he took it as me hating him. It was always so confusing to me because I couldn’t understand how he didn’t understand that just because I don’t like one thing about you doesn’t mean that I dislike everything about you.I found myself constantly trying to prove that I did like him in spite of my one criticism. I also tried to explain that the only reason why I pointed out anything he did wrong was when it hurts me. I just refused to allow him to hurt me just so I could prove that I cared about him. Everything was always so black and white with him. Thank you for explaining this.
Your perception on loyalty is actually kind of sweet. The whole not wanting to point out anything is bad in someone you’re super idolizing because you don’t want them to feel bad - part that you mentioned. But how then does one go from you being ferociously loyal and protective of them, to you being the one devaluing them because you start getting the feeling that you’re “one” is actually somewhere else out there and you have yet to find them. And also, while it’s sweet that you don’t want to point out anything bad about them to them because you don’t want them to feel bad about themselves, depending on what that might be, it could be harmful to you…. And then I’d have to go and kick their a** for talking smack about my all time favorite narcissist ever. Cuz that sh*t ain’t cool!
This is a tragic condition for all concerned. I hear what you are saying, it is painful to be criticised if it feels like your whole sense of self will tumble down. It is also painful to be in a relationship with someone who is hurting me and if I tell them they are hurting me they attack me. I must then be willing to be hurt without complaint or by expressing my complaint be attacked. It becomes impossible then to maintain a healthy sense of self. Thank you for helping me to begin to understand why it is so hard for those with narcissism. At least now I am able to see the aggression is not intentional.
Super Honesty, far out, it's good to know that but its still no easy solution. I actually got a text this morning from my narcissistic friend saying after so many years of loyalty why are you running away now. And that's the rub. To me it's friendship that never dies, but to him it's loyalty which is a different way at looking and relating to life. I don't really want to cut him off, but at the moment, I need my space to do my own things without criticism. He doesn't have to manipulate me back into his life. And if he stopped trying to manipulate me, I would be in his life. I am very impressed with your battle to figure this out. It's a tough job to take a step back an look at yourself. I've done it and had to deal with regret from living years of non helpful thoughts. Best wishes. You are a very tough bloke to do what you are doing 💚👍
Wow.....now I understand why my husband (we're separated) doesn't understand why I don't trust him even though I've forgiven him. We will never live together again because i will never go thru that hell again. He just can't fathom why I won't take him back.
You articulated this so well. This causes so much instability in me. I also feel so much shame because of it, because it makes no sense to other people.
HAHAHHAHAA “I’m never wrong” that was funny. That was really powerful to hear that you feel the smallest criticism feels like they’re literally calling you a bad person. Also it was interesting how you view forgiveness as meaning they think you’re good rather than just letting go of what you did and moving on. Ands it’s upsetting to hear that you feel if you’re not perfect that means they hate you, hearing that just make me feel so sad for you Thank you for being so honestly , I wish I could hug you. You bring so much insight and your perspective is really appreciated.
Trust is a currency that must be built up. Like these invisible values we all have that goes up and down. VERY rarely, will you get a "jackpot". Someone that just put their life in your hands and give 100% trust forever. Since it isn't earned, that often an unadjusted person or someone that are more extreme.
A narcissist lacks the ability to distinguish constructive criticism from blatant condescendance because they can't feel if where it's coming from is a caring or opposing person. Generally speaking, when a person has been around for awhile and has had the opportunity to show they care about you in different, continuous manner, then criticism is taken as suggestion, not as an attack. The opposite is true as well. If someone has caused harm in a repetitive manner, it's time to step away. The narcissist has been harmed through childhood without the ability to go away so they are hypervigilant with people even as adults. They have developed this defense mechanism for basic protection so no one can reach deeply and destroy them. Someone has already shattered their trust a long time ago. They've lost the ability to take what they perceive and cross check within to see if what they see is good or not. So when in doubt, don't take a chance and assume everything is just negative. Nothing can stick and hurt now because the wall is up and all the efforts and energy is spent control the surrounding so there are no surprises. It's extreme fear and fragility.
Great info! I have a question/video suggestion. My husband said he just exists from moment to moment. I suppose that’s object constancy issues turned inward, but because of this he says planning anything is very very difficult. He has a masters degree in CS and has a great job, and yet he feels he kind of doesn’t know how he got there. He says his entire life is one day at a time. If you could ever speak to that I’d appreciate it. I’m really trying to understand as best I can. Nearly ten years marriage and thanks to you and Dr Mark (spiritnarc and milkshake too!) I’m meeting my husband for the first time. Thank you!
The honesty is the best I feel like I can accept that and can work with that in a relationship the problem is I never get honesty it was always criticism, blame,neglect. But man if they were just saying hey it feels like shit when you say that I could be like oh damn my bad.
I don't think I'm a narcissist, but I do identify with how you feel when criticised. I feel it particularly so if it's a professional matter. I express the pain inwardly though - I attack myself and do whatever I can to mend the situation. So different way of dealing with it but the emotional response is exactly as you describe it.
I just wanted to point out when you said; "If I care about you, why would I point out anything bad you've done?". It's such a beautiful statement, and a display of radical acceptance.
I think it’s about how as child narcissist have been used by a parent to « collect » accountability, shame and everything in world resulting in : pain. I relate to what you said as my narcissist need me constantly to reflect she was doing ok even and this even when she hated me. Its ultra codependency. And she was doing great effort to say things perfectly, like it was the Olympic Games. Criticism : It’s like allergy, you can have a whole delicious meal, one slight drop of peanut butter and it’s death. For people it’s peanut butter, they want you to taste something delicious but to a narc it’s death = to them you want to kill them. The work you do here is very precious because so much people use the word narcissist as… a critic, making remission almost impossible. So what about we stop the circle of illness ?
Great video, Jacob! 🌟🌞 So, as far as I understood, you say no one can give you any criticism, even constructive? But what if a person who loves or likes you needs to give you some good & valid criticism? How are they supposed to do it the best way? Is it possible?? PS: again great video!
He’s explaining this- there is no “constructive” criticism for a narc because it all feels like a thousand daggers to their soul. It’s not possible for them to see the good in being criticized. It’s CRUEL. Torture. Inhumane. And yes he understands logically that personal growth is important, but there’s nothing logical about a personality disorder. So let’s say that he found the strength to consider the criticism and not react with rage to receiving it- this goes back to the sky being red analogy. We KNOW logically that we are wrong because everyone else is telling us this and we see we don’t function like others, but no matter how many times you try to see it form their perspective- we STILL see a blue sky, not a red one. This is why narcissism isn’t curable. That F’d perspective will always be running the shots.
Hey Jacob. When someone makes a suggestion, does the narcissist take that as criticism? And if so, how do we effectively come to you guys to discuss something we mean no harm or criticism, but would like a more mutual beneficial outcome for both parties involved? Thank you.
You approach your suggestions as a manner in which it could boost the narcissists image... So instead of "organize your ugly mess" you may say "others would be really impressed if this were organized:.. appeal to their self benefit first.
Here's something to think about. I did a self development course that taught (and I found to be true) . The way you behave because of the fears and way you feel about yourself,. You actually makes others feel that way about them selves when they are around you. It's sticky
@@timotimorrison3448 good call. It's been a long while since I've been through the exercises and have probably got it mixed up so it doesn't make sense. Basically communicating with others through filters of your insecurities either feeds those insecurities or what I thought can make others feel insecure but I can't figure out how that works now. So I withdraw the comment except to say sort out your insecurities because the outcome is not good to hold on them which is pretty universal not really insightful
My mother who is a narcissist just disowned me. She wants to buy a car instead of financially support me. I’m in university right now and I can’t make my own money fortunately I will figure it out. Please get help and don’t birth a child please.
Hi Jacob, thanks for your interesting video. I have lots of physical things wrong with me. I don't have a mental illness or disorder. In my world, if someone criticises you all the time, they are not your friend. You don't have to drop them like a hot potato, you just gradually see less of them until you don't see them at all. Friends are people you have fun with. Nobody is perfect, and if you like being with someone despite their many irritating habits, see them when you like to. You don't have to see them all the time. If you like someone, it does not mean they are perfect or special. It just means you like having fun together. They may be special to you because you like being with them and you like doing things together. Some people you might like to see a lot, others you can still see but you may enjoy seeing them less often. You might like them a bit. No every person is there to be used. You can just have fun together.
I don't know why narcissist do those things. I don't idealize people or devalue them and if someone upsets me I stay away from them. I have pointed out people's flaws to others so that they won't make me work or associate with them. These flaws have to be pretty bad like insulting me, pushing me around, shouting at me, telling me off, humiliating me. Etc I'm just a normal woman = adult human female.
Me too. I am a straight A college student. I just finished my graduate program and for my final class I gave myself permission to get a B or a C because I had too much in my plate to focus on the class. I still got an A. I can’t not strive for perfection. And trust me, I tried.
A lot of this shame awareness/defensiveness feels so similar to *face saving* of Chinese culture, except there it's much more intertwined. Being a shame based culture, shame is actively used on the fly counter-balanced with honor, to control public behavior & public face (reputation). re: 9:18 *if I'm super loyal & idealizing them I'll never point out and or at least I think that they do wrong* In face saving rules, I would be super hesitant to directly publicly shame a person, BUT it's fair game and expected to constantly/regularly indirectly shame and nudge people towards better public face (help others save their own face). This black and white framing of western culture might be due to guilt/law focus vs asian/traditional shame cultures. If I'm loyal to a close friend and they have a gigantic blind spot, where they're losing face and making a fool of themselves, then helping them save face (public image/reputation/status is falling apart) is higher priority vs. saving their personal ego/feelings (I'm not wrong) by helping cover up their blind spots (enabling). re: 9:28 *if it's somebody who's insulting me then yeah I'll go for every insecurity they have and trust me as somebody who is insecure about literally everything I pick up on that stuff* I am also highly trained at constantly monitoring and tracking my own and everyone else's insecurities (shame awareness), and it's annoying as F to deal with neurotic's insecurities fully exposed on the surface, see them constantly deceive themselves, along with pushing and expecting me to keep up those appearances (or face more social demands). My personal peeves as being both Chinese culture default, with autistic intensity/spontaneity tendencies, and having to code switch to just fit in.
I also struggle with diminished object constancy, and it sucks, especially when I'm activated... But it really is a variable state, and we can learn to improve it by calming down the metabolism. I do liken this process to drug withdrawal... b/c it does require experimenting with very boring and low-excitement periods, where we learn to just chill for days or weeks at a time, but it is possible to at least experience a different metabolic intensity. Granted it's easy to get reactivated & we have to live with that, but a more chill metabolic state really is possible... if anything, just to experiment with it.
Today is the first time you have popped up on my feed. I have watched 4 or 5 of your vids now which I find interesting because I have never known a Narc that thought--or I guess would admit that they needed to change. I have also never heard any specialist say that someone with actual NPD could have any emotional empathy at all. So, I'm not sure if you are a true narcissist or just have very strong narcissistic traits. It is odd to me that you could see a therapist, who's job it is to point out the things that aren't good about you, if you have such a strong reaction to your friends criticizing something about you. If they are your friend, they are doing it for the same reason a therapist would--they care about you getting better because they want you to be happy, or they want to keep being your friend because, for the most part, they like you. Maybe it would help you to think about it like that. Anyway, I'll keep watching, and I hope you can find some inner peace. I do Yoga Nidra, and it helps me a lot.
Its crazy that everything a narc feels other people are thinking or feeling, is just their own projection. Eg: you mentioning that any criticism feels like they're trying to hurt you (something a narc would do), or that if someone criticises you then you're not 'perfect' and that you're flawed and they will "hate you and you are nothing to them" (again something a narc will do). It also makes me think that empathy is just pro-social projection. Often people feel empathy because they understand how someone thinks or feels. So projection is just a narc having anti-social empathy. I hope that makes sense 😅
Forgiving someone means you do not want to harm them for what they did to you. It means that you set them free for what they have done, But it does NOT mean trust is automatically repaired. Trust must be earned, things are NOT automatically back to the way it was before because the trust has been destroyed. You're pointing out that the sky is blue, but others see it as red, showing that you perceive yourself with a normal perspective and it is everybody else that is wrong. It seems that you carry a scab. You believe that others are deliberately picking your scab and making you bleed. You will cover that scab with a false self to not ever feel that hurt again.
@@Tailionis weird shit. Weirder than usual. Like one time, I felt like it made me feel super nurturing toward my cat so I started licking his head to show him I love him and consider him my family. The other times, it’s made me kind of actually very productive. I went out to my backyard to do something and got distracted by the weeds and started de-weeding the entire yard at midnight by hand. Another time, I decided to finally hang the heavy ass mirror in the guest room that I had put off doing for about a month.🤷♀️
If I forgive you but want to stay no contact it doent mean that youre good or bad, its means that I understand now why you did behave the way you did, but I know that it would be too much for me to go through this again so in order to protect myself and my mental health we have to stay no contact (especially if you are not willing to work on your issues)
I'm sure your childhood taught you to feel unloved by any negativity or criticism and that's so wrong how you were raised. You deserved to be raised with love and care and lots and lots of attention. I'm so sorry you didn't get those needs met. There are definitely ways to point out mistakes in a loving way in order to guide people through their lives, and perhaps this is something that triggers you because of your upbringing. I'll just say that there's a difference between harmful criticism and helpful critique. A parent will tell their child not to eat candy all day, and the child might see it as a mean and harsh criticism, but the parent knows such food will not nourish them properly. That type of critique comes from a place of concern and love. To not do it would be the ultimate unloving thing because you ignore that which doesn't matter to you.
7:58 You don't pretend that they're perfect.. you get hormones and chemicals in your brain when you bond strongly to someone and love them that even the negative looks good ❤
I always thought that when a narcissist take offense on objective criticism they do it on purpose to change the subject, gaslight and to start a fight cause they're eager for conflict lol how do I know that you really take things personally or that you're only trying to get away with the main subject and trying to make the other person look like a "personal persecutor"?
First, not every narc presents the same. Secondly- I don’t think he needs to prove anything to a rando on the internet. If you don’t believe him- then don’t believe him.!
Maybe there are aspects you’ve not valued in yourself and when it looks like someone is or intentionally criticising that trait it feels like the knife digs in deeper into your insecurity. If someone says something in a harsh, curt, sarcastic way it can hurt even more. You started it so I will finish it… I can see why you would feel a need to teach someone a lesson if you don’t feel safe around them or if you feel their drive is to hurt you. Pretty much taught to be on fight mode ever since childhood .
Why do you hate everything about you? As long as you don’t hurt people intentionally and do bad things in order to hurt them I don’t see the issue really. I know it can be painful, but life is for many of us… most actually at some points and for some almost all the time.
can you help us understand why you hate yourself? What are the parts of you that you hate and do you believe you are capable of accepting yourself at any point?
All I wanted from my ex was to be equally met , the fact of being perceived incorrectly hurt more then my being worthless and meaningless As if I was just used for the whole relationship as a sex toy leaving me feeling raped
One of the hallmarks of relationships with pathologically narcissistic people is the cycle of good times and bad times, where the narcissist alternates between decent or loving behavior and cruel abusive or neglectful behavior. This is dynamic is caused by splitting, the process by which narcissistic personalities attempt to understand whole object relations. Narcissistic people have extreme difficulty with this and as a result their brain creates two different separate images of the same object when contradictory characteristics are encountered. In order to hold this new contradictory information this usually looks like a split where one understanding of the person is all good and the other is all bad. Ironically because narcissists engage in splitting they may actually accuse the other person of having what seems like multiple personalities or flipping like a switch when in actuality it is they who are doing that. The cycle of narcissistic relationships alternates between idealization and devaluation. The good times with narcissistic personalities are predicated not on love but on idealization which is an imaginary way of viewing something as perfect and more valuable than it really is. The bad times with narcissistic personalities are predicated not on hatred or indifference but on devaluation which is an imaginary way of viewing something as more flawed and less valuable than it really is. Neither idealization nor devaluation are about the other person at all. They include no realistic understanding of the other person in any way. They are about the narcissist affected and even delusional way of seeing other people and themselves. The narcissistic cycle ensnares the ego with idealization by building it up to tremendous heights and then crushing the ego brutally with devaluation, seemingly at random or for no reason. This is a cycle that intoxicates the ego inflates the ego and even tricks it into falling in love with its own importance, then rips all that away which causes the ego to endlessly chase for more, trying to explain, prove, reason in the hopes of receiving idealization again, but this cycle is not based on real emotions or actual love at all. Idealization definitely feels goodm anyone would like to be considered perfect but it's not love. It can't be because there's no bonding, no intimacy. It's not based in reality in any way and it includes no real understanding of the other person as a person at all. Even if you have genuine feelings for this person you are missing and romanticizing idealization from them not love and you don't need idealization it's just as toxic as devaluation. Narcissists provoke emotions through attacking a perso's ego. Ego is the part of us that speaks as "I" it refers to your sense of self. There's a lot of ego involvement in relationships with narcissists on the part of the narcissist and for other people. The manipulations employed by narcissists generally involve the ego of other people and they consist of ego feeding, ego starving and ego shaming. Ego feeding happens during the idealization phase of the cycle where someone is flattered, love bombed, given gifts or excessive attention, compared favorably to other people and generally treated well -often exceedingly even unrealistically well. They may be seen as perfect or heroic by the narcissist, a rescuer a savior a soulmate. There's often a very intense focus on the person or the relationship. The person receiving this level of attention and idealization feels seen and loved in a way they have never been seen or loved before. Even if the level of intensity makes them uncomfortable at first, people in this phase of the cycle may do a lot to keep it going including abandoning other things in order to be with the narcissist as much as possible. idealization feels good and it's usually that idealized image they had of us that we fell in love with and don't want to lose. It is a massive component of these relationships - regardless of whether they are family or romantic. When the narcissist's perfect, idealized image of you lines up with your perfect, idealized image of yourself, you feel like you're being seen in a way you were never seen before, and it's very hard to let go of that. Narcissists attack other people's sense of self relentlessly. Even during love bombing and idealization, they are not seeing you for who you are or allowing you to be that. They are reacting to a false image of you that they have created in their minds. At no point in the relationship are you seen for who and what you are, or are you allowed to be that. You are TOLD what these things are - constantly. Love bombing is idealization and reacting to reactions. They a reacting to your reactions to the things around you. It's not hard to figure out what's important to somebody. It requires no intelligence or empathy at all. Love bombing is not giving it's taking. It involves boundary violations and the objectification of the other person, who is being to make the narcissist feel good. It's manipulation and theres no giving involved in manipulation at all. Flattery is not giving. Controlling someone is not giving. Violating boundaries is not giving. . Venting is not intimacy. Lying or making up problems to prey on the sympathy of others is not intimacy. Creating flying monkeys by engaging in smear campaigns is not intimacy. Love bombing is a bombardment of totally inappropriate, extreme, grandiose and boundary violating behaviour. Love-bombing and idealization are just as unhealthy as the rest of the relationship with a narcissistic person. It's not even really about whether it's real or it's not real, although many times it is just a manipulation. No matter what, this kind of extreme behavior is the sign of a toxic and/or dysregulated person. Ego starving happens when the favorable comparisons stop. The excessive attention dwindles and the intensity is dialed back. The person is no longer seen as perfect or not as perfect, they're not seen as heroic or as a savior anymore. The cracks are starting to show, the new has worn off. The narcissist may appear to be bored or disengaged with the relationship. The other person is confused about why this is happening and upon receiving no real explanation from their narcissistic partner or family member they can come to believe that they must have caused that. This is an idea that is of course usually enthusiastically reinforced by narcissists who believe that all of their feelings are created by external forces and other people and never have an internal cause. In order to rectify this situation people will often go very far to try to bring the relationship back to good and get back to the place where they were seen as ideal because that feels so amazing. Ego shaming occurs during the devaluation phase of the cycle where someone is accused, attacked, belittled demeaned, compared unfavorably to other people and generally treated very poorly. They may be seen as irredeemably flawed, unfailingly foolish or unrepentingly evil, an abuser, a saboteur not worthy of the narcissist's time. There may be a complete withdrawal from the relationship except for negative interactions. People in this phase of the cycle may do things they have never done or ever thought they would do because the pain of being seen as so bad when they were seen so ideally before is extreme- especially when there may seem to be no real reason for it at all or none that you can figure out. This phase may be followed by an exit from the relationship whether temporary or permanent or another idealization phase might occur. These relationships don't always follow a strict cycle of idealized, devalue, discard in that order. They can alternate between idealization and devaluation for years with a true discard never happening at all. The relationship may be abandoned, re-secured, abandoned, re-secured over and over again as it cycles through the phases. Often with hoovering occurring between these phases. This can be extremely damaging to people. Ego trauma is an attack on your identity your sense of self. Narcissistic relationships are different from other toxic or abusive relationships in this key way. They involve a massive amount of ego trauma. Not just for the reasons that already mentioned, but because pathologically narcissistic people create false images of others and then they have a relationship with those images as if they're real. They act upon react to and interact with these images as if that's who somebody really is. They've also created false images of themselves and they expect other people to behave as though that's the reality of who the narcissist is. These images are often completely different from the actual objective experiences of everyone round the narcissistic person and the effect of this on somebody is that of extreme gaslighting. For example, being interacted with as if you are an untrustworthy thief when you've never stolen anything or being expected to react to a very physically abusive person as if they've never hurt a fly or being reacted to as if you're dangerous and scary when you've never done anything to provoke that response from somebody and much much more.
This goes beyond just being told that you're doing things that you're not doing . This is a complete immersion in an environment where you are relentlessly interacted with and reacted to as if you actually are somebody else. Like walking onto a part in a movie that you didn't know you were playing and there's this entire history and all these scenes that have happened that you have no idea what's going on and you don't know what anybody's talking about. This is relentless it never stops even for a second because this is their reality. Further, you expect to interact with and react to another person as if they're not who they are either. Even small challenges to these narratives may be met with extreme backlash, hostility and punishment. You are required to literally ignore the objective experience that makes up your reality and participate in a false one in order to exist in the relationship at all. This results in constantly conflicting realities. It is extremely confusing and disorienting for people and the damage that can be done to a person's sense of self is enormous if they are not aware that this is what's happening. The damage this does to children in particular is devastating, it can be cataclysmic. It's only when a person becomes an adult and can start to see these things for how they really are that they can start to assess the damage that has been done by this. Narcissists devalue and discard for the same reason they idealize and love-bomb: because they are the only ones that matter. For the narcissistic personality giving is impossible. Even if they had the ability, which many do not, they consider it weakness. You can see this very clearly in the insistence of many narcissistic people that attempts to get them to give are manipulations designed to harm them or take advantage of them. Other toxic types of personalities have the same problem as well. The object of the game is to end up with all the marbles and if you give your marbles away then you cannot win the game, the game of survival at all costs. Emotional and energy resources are finite for these types of personalities. They simply don't have enough to share. When you couple that with the lack of empathy in the first place you end up with a personality that is unwilling to give in any way without extracting an enormous price for it and perhaps they're unable to give it all. Some people believe love bombing indicate empathy or the capacity to give but it doesn't. The best this person is capable of is the temporary appearance of giving or intimacy and that's all. When small children think of love, they think of what other people do for them because that is their only concept of love at that age. The narcissist is the same. They expect to be given all things, accepted in all things and forgiven for all things, with no caring or understanding that this is not a fair, reasonable or realistic way to have an adult relationship.
The victim becomes addicted to the drama a chaos not the narcissist. Drama and chaos work much the same way in the brain as opiates. Narcissists are also addicted to this. Another thing is, when you stop participating in the drama cycle, the narcissist continues on the script as if you are still reacting. This is often when you clearly see how disordered the person truly is, and how little any of it has to do with you and what you do. When people do this, they can often see how little they were even being heard, let alone somehow influencing or controlling the narcissist's behavior.. They are having a relationship with their fantasy of you and you are having a relationship with their fantasy of themselves. Their fantasy of themselves becomes your fantasy of them and then nobody in the relationship is accepting or even seeing the other person for who they really are. In order to truly care about somebody you have to see them for who they really are. in all phases of the cycle of the relationship the narcissistic person sees a fantasy projection of you. when their fantasy projection of you lines up with your idealized self you will believe they are seeing you as you truly are, that's the trap. The idealization that occurs in a healthy relationship is nowhere near as extreme as what happens in narcissistic relationships. The reality of people is not completely different from what you see or what is projected of them. In healthy relationships when people find out that the other person is not as perfect as they thought they were they're able to adjust to that and still have a relationship. This does not happen in relationships with narcissistic people. The discovery that you are not perfect and neither are they is devastating for them. When a person is placed on such a high pedestal there's nowhere to go but down and the fall to the bottom it's far. We often find that even when people know someone is not an honest person and/or has unreliable perception, they will still often internalize the negative things said about them, as if in this one specific area, the narcissist or other toxic person is somehow magically not only telling the truth, but also living in reality. This is not the case. Everything they say has the same value as far as honesty and perception goes. Their insults and criticisms are just as overblown as their idealizations, and vice-versa. Part of this is because people with a strong narcissistic pathology often hide behind personas created to manipulate others for survival. People incorrectly assume that if that persona or façade is not real, the opposite of it must be the truth or the reality of who this person is, therefore what they say and do during these times is true. This is understandable but it's mistaken. Their honesty and perception are no more valid or unaffected during these times. The truth is, both the nice and mean sides - and any others - that you might see are personas or masks in a manner of speaking. Both of these personas or sides of their personality were created to do the same thing: enable the narcissist to survive. For example, the anger, cruelty and abuse that you see are defensive, even they don't appear to be. This comes out when the narcissist perceives a threat. It may not be a threat you can understand, but it doesn't matter. You not seeing or recognizing a threat anywhere has nothing to do with whether or not they think there is one. This person does not think like you do. They don't come to the same conclusions that you do. They just don't, and that's all there is to it. They respond to emotions they don't understand, that they may not even be aware they are feeling and many react immediately with guns blazing, ready to eliminate any threat. Others retreat completely, cutting off communication or even contact until they feel that the threat is gone. It is a primitive, childish defense mechanism created and perpetuated by their enormous emotional immaturity.
Almost all of the ways pathologically narcissistic people deal with conflict (both internal or external) are childish, and often, so is much of their communication. narcissists are like little kids on the playground; they will keep throwing insults at someone until something upsets them and once they see what that insult is, they will keep repeating it because it works. This is one reason controlling our own reactions to our emotions is so important. By not doing that, you yourself are supplying them with the ammunition they are hitting you with. This is another reason it makes no sense to believe the things they say. They are not operating off of reality or facts in any way. They are operating solely off of your reaction. They don't care if it's true or not. They care that you care. Upsetting you makes them feel powerful and superior, exactly like those kids on the playground. Narcissists may or may not have any real understanding of what they are doing; a lack of empathy suggests that they really don't have any true understanding, but it doesn't really matter, since they don't care anyway because that's not the point. You are not the point. You are simply a tool being used in the endless endeavor to make themselves feel better. Any actual empathy they may have is cancelled out by this fact regardless. it's important to understand though that what we're really talking about here is somebody's opinion. That's it. That's all it is no matter how important it seems. No matter how much it hurts, in the end that's it that's all it is. It's somebody's opinion. Not only is it somebody's opinion, it's the opinion of a person who is profoundly unable to see things as they truly are in any way. It is not reality and it should never carry more weight than your own opinion of yourself. Nobody's opinion should. Self-esteem is called self-esteem because it's what we think of ourselves. The ego manipulations of narcissistic people are designed to interfere with that. This is how they function, they derive their own worth completely from other people's opinions and this is the only way they know how to interact with anybody else "I decide my worth based on other people's opinions of me and they decide their worth based on my opinion of them" It is up to us to not allow that to happen. When we do the ego work that is necessary in order to heal from these relationships we will find that the idealized , devaluation cycles no longer affect us in the same way because we aren't as vulnerable to idealization anymore. We don't need to be idealized and we're no longer totally crushed by being devalued. It still hurts because being devalued by anybody would hurt but it doesn't devastate us. When we know who and what we are and who and what we are not, this is the best armor you can have against ego trauma someone else cannot define you and then destroy you by capriciously changing that definition when you define yourself. Get to a place where the toxic ego manipulation perpetuated by a narcissistic person is no longer effective on you. You don't need other people to see you as perfect or flawless or anything like that.Be okay with who you are and it's okay that they don't see you that way
Lol! You said doo doo. @8:30 marker 😂 Sorry… definitely not making fun of what you said… it’s that I’m a 45 yr old female with the mind of a child who turns everything into something gross or perverse.🤷♀️😂
Is this a plea to someone you lost??? Because narcissists DO NOT pretend their loved one or target is perfect PERIOD! Narcissist criticize all that is good in those closest to them. What you are saying about yourself not able to handle criticism…yes we all have learned that about narcisssits….but when you talk about how you treat friends that they are All good is weird and not indicative of how narcs treat others. Sorry it’s weird
Ok so listening to more of this , you are now revealing how narcs really do to others, you just admitted if they insult or criticize YOU…you will go after all THEIR insecurities. In other words, if you PERCEIVE them to ridicule you, you will do the vile attack and shred them to pieces with all the know you have on them. Now That’s better,because that’s truth of how narcs operate and sorry, but sometimes it’s damaging to the point of no return because the target a.k.a loved one, friend…now sees just how brutal,cruel and untrusting you are. And it’s not always forgivable, it’s better to cut you out and move on.
Every time you feel the need to say you're smart, it, low key, makes you look like a prick. Just let your videos speak for themselves. You're better than that. They paint you better than that. The reason you can be forgiven but not be trusted is such a basic concept that is hard for a lot of people to grasp. Just because someone accepts what you've done doesn't mean they're willing to allow it to happen to them again. - Unsure
So interesting. This insecurity and protection against anything that might make you feel inferior really strikes at your core? It's like an ultra-sensitive nerve that gets agitated at the smallest thing. I wonder if truly knowing yourself will help against these criticisms/insults. Because if you truly know yourself, when someone else criticizes you or your work, you can then ask yourself: 'is that criticism accurate?" and if the answer is "no" than you can dismiss it and not be as affected...? If that criticism is accurate, then you might actually be appreciative of the person who made it for bringing something to your attention you didn't recognize, you can then try and see how to improve and make yourself or your work "better". As mentioned, if it's not accurate, then just disagree with the person who made it, and move on, knowing that you know yourself better than someone else and/or your work to be what it truly is (I think this is what being "self confident" is all about)...the other aspect of all of this is whether you actually care about what the person making the criticism says? If their criticisms are off-base or you don't care who they are, just disregard. If it's someone you genuinely care about and they criticize you, know that it's likely coming from a place of love or misunderstanding, and they likely want you and/or your work to be the best it can possibly be. Not because they are intentionally trying to hurt you or attack who you are as a person...All the best, narcissism seems to be such a maladaptive thought process that will likely take some serious effort to overcome...Maybe look at it as a "challenge" you have to overcome in your life? We all have challenges we need to overcome in our lives. This just happens to be one of yours...
This is one of the many ways we can differentiate between narcissism and healthy self-esteem: a healthy person can laugh off, ignore or even logically evaluate criticism because he is secure; the narcissist cannot do this because he is not secure. That's why they are hyper-sensitive to criticism both real and imagined. It's pretty well-known to those who've had to deal with narcissistic people that narcissists don't deal with mistakes very well. Whether you made one or whether they did, there's bound to be a problem over it.If you are the one who made the mistake, the narcissist may either be crushed that you are not perfect or overjoyed that you've messed up. Either way, you are going to hear about it. It is not uncommon for pathologically narcissistic people to fly into a rage over very minor mistakes, attacking the other person relentlessly and attempting to annihilate their character for something as small as bringing the wrong item from the store or simple forgetfulness. There can be a few reasons for this. Many times, it's because the narcissist doesn't believe it is a mistake in the first place. They are sure you have malicious motives. They are certain you've done this thing on purpose to upset, sabotage or otherwise harm them. They take it as a personal attack and an offense. And of course, any attack on a narcissist will be avenged. If they do believe that it was unintentional, they may still attack or demean people anyway because it is a chance to make themselves feel better. Any flaw or failure on another person's part is an opportunity to elevate themselves and many narcissists will jump at this opportunity. Sometimes narcissistic people will attack loved ones for making mistakes because they cannot stand the idea that the person is not perfect. Not only do they feel this reflects badly on them, but a narcissist's idea of love is very immature, unrealistic and idealized. A partner that is not being devalued and discarded is usually being put on a pedestal. When this perfect partner messes up or fails somehow, this crushes the narcissist. They feel betrayed and tricked, and horribly let down. It's not unlike the way a child feels when they are forced to see their parents as ordinary humans before they are ready to understand or accept this fall from grace. It's a very traumatic experience, and it usually alters the relationship permanently. Regardless of the reason, narcissists cannot abide mistakes. And if mistakes are difficult to accept from other people, they intolerable from the narcissist themselves. Everyone who has dealt with a pathological narcissist knows how far they will go not to admit or accept that they've made a mistake. But this denial is a lot more than just not wanting to be wrong. To most people, a simple mistake is usually not that big of a deal. It can be embarrassing, depending on the type of mistake but generally, we all understand that everyone makes mistakes. To a narcissist, making a mistake - any mistake - is unacceptable. It's unforgivable. Mistakes to the narcissist are the ultimate proof they are not special or superior, which means that, behind the false self, all the horrible, hateful things they secretly believe about themselves are true. They really are worthless, they really are garbage, they really are stupid. This is of course ridiculous. Making a mistake means none of these things, but because of the narcissist's delusional shame and pathological self-hatred, it only takes something small to shatter the illusion they are trying to advance, and that tidal wave of bad feelings comes pouring through. Something as small as not remembering the date can be enough to trigger huge feelings of shame. It sounds absurd to most people, but this is the miserable reality that pathologically narcissistic people are living in. This is why they need to blame their mistakes on other people. They need an out, a way to nullify and invalidate those bad feelings. If they can't do that, the feelings will overwhelm them and they are unable to deal with it. That is pretty much the reason they do everything. Their life is nothing but one long, constant attempt to escape those horrible, overwhelming feelings. It's why they rage, it's why they lie, it's why they manipulate and gaslight and why they created a false self in the first place. All of their efforts are directed toward the same thing. Sadly, it's like trying to hold the ocean back with a broom. The facade is so fragile that even a very small mistake sends the whole thing crashing down. Imagine if your opinion of yourself were so delusional and negative that making a simple mistake could cause you to decompensate, even to become suicidal if you couldn't blame it on somebody are else and were forced to acknowledge it. This is their reality. And this is why relationships with pathologically narcissistic people will always be unfair and abusive. They are literally one small mistake away from total disaster all the time.
Nobody likes to be wrong, but narcissists take it so far beyond where most people would. They will make up lies, they will invent facts, they will attack you personally and even physically in an effort to get you to admit they are right. To the narcissist, every situation they find themselves in is a contest where they have to be the winner. To be wrong - even about something really small or silly - means losing. Losing or being incorrect represents a failure to the narcissist. Narcissists cannot take the feelings of self-hatred and shame that come from even very small failures or mistakes, and those feelings are triggered very easily. That is why they often explode when they feel criticized or make a mistake, even if it's really not that big of a deal to everybody else. Those feelings simply must go somewhere and narcissists are unable to carry the feelings themselves. They have to give them to someone else to carry because the burden is just too great. They try to stave off those feelings as long as possible, with arguing in circles, personal attacks, denial, derailing the conversation... anything to not have to accept that they are wrong about something. If you ever do succeed in breaking through the denial and proving to the narcissist they are in fact wrong, you will be accused of cheating, of fabricating evidence, of colluding with people against the narcissist or whatever else they have to say to convince themselves that they are still not really wrong. It isn't you they are trying to convince. It's themselves -- and anyone who may happen to be listening. If accusing the other person of wrongdoing fails, you will often see a complete reversal of position in which they now claim it is they - not you - who have been providing the correct information all along. The fact that this completely contradicts reality does not matter to them at all. People often ask me how narcissists can do that, and the answer is that narcissists have no truth and they don't care about the specifics anyway. Not really. What they care about is being right. Being wrong means failing. Failing again, creates feelings of shame and self-hatred which are very painful and overwhelming to the narcissist. This can even lead to self-harming or suicidal feelings over very small mistakes. These are miserable, sad, unstable people, even though many of them don't appear to be that way. That's why they argue so hard and so viciously. Most people - people who are not narcissists - will accept that they are not going to get anywhere in a conversation or a debate after a certain point. Narcissists cannot accept that because they need validation from other people. If the other person does not validate them, that is to say, if the other person does not say the narcissist is right, the narcissist feels rejected and attacked. Invalidated. It is not about the subject of the argument for the narcissist, and it never was. It's about the person they are arguing with validating them and proving they have worth. When the person continues to tell them they are wrong or mistaken, the narcissist understands this as a personal attack and they see the person as the cause of those horrible feelings of shame and self-hatred. This is senseless and unfair, but the narcissist does not see that. They believe they feel badly because the other person is attacking them. They react in self-defense of their very lives, which looks like a huge overreaction to the other person, who does not understand why the narcissist is so upset over something so small. To the narcissist it does not feel small. They walk around all day every day for their entire lives feeling worthless, unlovable and wrong. They feel wrong all the time, about everything. That's why everything is a competition to them: they desperately want to get rid of the feeling that they are a useless loser. A failure. So they make everything a contest and sadly, because they are only fighting to win, they are still wrong more often than they are right. This just makes them feel worse, so it becomes an endless cycle of argue, attack, deny. Narcissists are in such deep denial about so many things that they cannot see reality in it's true perspective at all.
As someone who is battling with a strong case of what to me seems like narcissism or serious narcissistic traits and is now actually trying to do something about them, I just want to say this to all of you: when we yell at your, we are not mad at you. We are mad at our inability to see the world correctly, with our out-of-touchness with it, with our suddenly realized perception of it that it is our own and not anyone else's, and the fact that we genuinely do not know what to do about it. We project ourselves onto and attack you for the same reasons this guy listed above, but also because since we believe you are like us, that you are attacking us with the same venom that we would: we have no concept of anything but ourselves because of how stuck in it due to all the walls we have that don't allow love in. Each of our reasons for why that wall is there is different, but that is what is causing us so much grief. It is what I realized the first times I was able to allow love into me: that sudden feeling that this whole inside me is suddenly filling up with a connection that I thought was dangerous, that would allow me to be "just like them" and vulnerable to an attack if it were to come. I don't know what or if anything instilled this fear in me, but we are battling with this wall, whatever caused it, and our inability to both want to bring it down before realizing that "we shouldn't" before realizing "we should."
I don't mean this to be a grief post, but for this to be a way of me saying I'm sorry to anyone I have hurt. I know they will likely never read this, but this is also to any victims of people who are like us. Be mad at us and distance yourself from us if you can, but also realize our insults are not truly aimed at you. They are aimed at the projection of ourselves that we are secretly placing onto you, but not even we can often times see that. Do not forgive us unless we have shown that we are truly trying to forgive ourselves, and even then, hold a righteous grudge. Never let us forget the damage we have done if you choose to keep us in your lives, but also be careful not to become us. It's correct to hold us accountable, but sometimes trauma lingers over into every part of your life. Seek a support network, whether you are still with the narcissist or not.
It sounds insane, but the narcissist does not truly want to destroy. They want to heal, but their methods of healing involve destruction that they cannot perceive because of how disconnected from anything but their own selves that they are. I hope this did not ramble too much as I just sort of went off, but hopefully some victims and recovering narcissists can find some peace if they read this.
You are a wonderful person. May peace be with you.
Thanks for sharing this. It confirmed some of my theories about why the narc in my life lashes out at me when I didn’t do anything wrong.
i have narcissistic traits too but from bpd, someone with narcissistic personality disorder would lack empathy for what they've done and wouldn't fear love or tell people to stay away, i was raised by narcissists and it wasn't random lashing out from unhealed trauma, it was calculated and evil. maybe look into bpd, outwards and inwards bursts of rage is one symptom & it overlaps heavily with narcissistic traits. men with bpd can be mislabeled as having npd
@@endmite Well the thing is, narcissism has a "come down" or "snap to reality" for some sufferers, meaning they actually get, for a brief moment, a look into just how insane they are. They cognitively dissociate from their insecurities to the point where they often don't even realize they are even there, but once this moment hits them, they "get it." There are a few self-aware narcissist UA-camrs who attest to this, and online, if you read about other ones who have mentioned they were able to put the past behind them, they all tell you that this really did come down to insecurities. It's just that they turned their fears into "organized rage," if you will.
And maybe I am BPD, but I noticed I matched with almost all of NPD's symptoms when I looked it up. I have a severe lack of empathy (though not completely), I am sensitive to criticism, I do have grandiose fantasies, compliments absolutely floor me, I don't handle stress well, I do often times say "I hate myself," I have felt superior to others, and I do need to at least feel recognized by others, otherwise I get fearful of what it is they might say. I need admiration from them in order to feel "secure," not powerful. Hence why I never diagnosed myself as this for a long time, and also why many narcissists are unaware.
The other thing is just how "right" I thought I was, not arrogant. But now I am gradually telling myself that I need to understand others, not say they are ridiculous for holding on to people they hold deer that are causing them stress.
What a life.... Greatly appreciate the honesty and freedom of thought. Wish my Ex was at the point of her journey she could have flowed outwardly in such a manor. Realize a lot of pain I was unintentionally causing her...
Dr. Gabor Mate's method helped me address triggers, release the trappings of my shame spiral, have compassion for myself and less dependence on others for stabilization of self-worth. He has a lot of material out there, including videos on YT. Doesn't have a channel, mostly seminars and interviews but good content, imo.
People can be perfectly imperfect... Relationships are about growing and learning and challenging each other to become the best version of ourselves. What is the point of life otherwise? Hedonism? Life quickly becomes boring if you know everything and are perfect.
The biggest issue I had with the narcissist I dated was that if I made a complaint about something he did, he took it as me hating him. It was always so confusing to me because I couldn’t understand how he didn’t understand that just because I don’t like one thing about you doesn’t mean that I dislike everything about you.I found myself constantly trying to prove that I did like him in spite of my one criticism. I also tried to explain that the only reason why I pointed out anything he did wrong was when it hurts me. I just refused to allow him to hurt me just so I could prove that I cared about him. Everything was always so black and white with him. Thank you for explaining this.
Your perception on loyalty is actually kind of sweet. The whole not wanting to point out anything is bad in someone you’re super idolizing because you don’t want them to feel bad - part that you mentioned.
But how then does one go from you being ferociously loyal and protective of them, to you being the one devaluing them because you start getting the feeling that you’re “one” is actually somewhere else out there and you have yet to find them.
And also, while it’s sweet that you don’t want to point out anything bad about them to them because you don’t want them to feel bad about themselves, depending on what that might be, it could be harmful to you…. And then I’d have to go and kick their a** for talking smack about my all time favorite narcissist ever. Cuz that sh*t ain’t cool!
This is a tragic condition for all concerned. I hear what you are saying, it is painful to be criticised if it feels like your whole sense of self will tumble down. It is also painful to be in a relationship with someone who is hurting me and if I tell them they are hurting me they attack me. I must then be willing to be hurt without complaint or by expressing my complaint be attacked. It becomes impossible then to maintain a healthy sense of self. Thank you for helping me to begin to understand why it is so hard for those with narcissism. At least now I am able to see the aggression is not intentional.
Super Honesty, far out, it's good to know that but its still no easy solution. I actually got a text this morning from my narcissistic friend saying after so many years of loyalty why are you running away now. And that's the rub. To me it's friendship that never dies, but to him it's loyalty which is a different way at looking and relating to life. I don't really want to cut him off, but at the moment, I need my space to do my own things without criticism. He doesn't have to manipulate me back into his life. And if he stopped trying to manipulate me, I would be in his life.
I am very impressed with your battle to figure this out. It's a tough job to take a step back an look at yourself. I've done it and had to deal with regret from living years of non helpful thoughts. Best wishes. You are a very tough bloke to do what you are doing 💚👍
Wow.....now I understand why my husband (we're separated) doesn't understand why I don't trust him even though I've forgiven him. We will never live together again because i will never go thru that hell again. He just can't fathom why I won't take him back.
You articulated this so well. This causes so much instability in me. I also feel so much shame because of it, because it makes no sense to other people.
This was so raw and a bit triggering .. Feels like i’m getting a glimpse into my ex’s inner world . Thank you so much for sharing .
HAHAHHAHAA “I’m never wrong” that was funny.
That was really powerful to hear that you feel the smallest criticism feels like they’re literally calling you a bad person.
Also it was interesting how you view forgiveness as meaning they think you’re good rather than just letting go of what you did and moving on.
Ands it’s upsetting to hear that you feel if you’re not perfect that means they hate you, hearing that just make me feel so sad for you
Thank you for being so honestly , I wish I could hug you. You bring so much insight and your perspective is really appreciated.
Why is it that you (narcissists) are incapable of treating other individuals the same way you want to be treated?
or put us in the "double bind"- in a situation that there is no right answer to your crazy question or accusation. it's maddening!
Because they don’t have empathy! And that’s what that idiom is all about.
You've opened my eyes to a lot of things. I appreciate you a lot.
Trust is a currency that must be built up. Like these invisible values we all have that goes up and down. VERY rarely, will you get a "jackpot". Someone that just put their life in your hands and give 100% trust forever. Since it isn't earned, that often an unadjusted person or someone that are more extreme.
That red/blue sky metaphor was fantastic!
A narcissist lacks the ability to distinguish constructive criticism from blatant condescendance because they can't feel if where it's coming from is a caring or opposing person. Generally speaking, when a person has been around for awhile and has had the opportunity to show they care about you in different, continuous manner, then criticism is taken as suggestion, not as an attack. The opposite is true as well. If someone has caused harm in a repetitive manner, it's time to step away. The narcissist has been harmed through childhood without the ability to go away so they are hypervigilant with people even as adults. They have developed this defense mechanism for basic protection so no one can reach deeply and destroy them. Someone has already shattered their trust a long time ago. They've lost the ability to take what they perceive and cross check within to see if what they see is good or not. So when in doubt, don't take a chance and assume everything is just negative. Nothing can stick and hurt now because the wall is up and all the efforts and energy is spent control the surrounding so there are no surprises. It's extreme fear and fragility.
“Very frequently accurate” 😆 Love your vids, Thanks.
Great info! I have a question/video suggestion. My husband said he just exists from moment to moment. I suppose that’s object constancy issues turned inward, but because of this he says planning anything is very very difficult. He has a masters degree in CS and has a great job, and yet he feels he kind of doesn’t know how he got there. He says his entire life is one day at a time. If you could ever speak to that I’d appreciate it. I’m really trying to understand as best I can. Nearly ten years marriage and thanks to you and Dr Mark (spiritnarc and milkshake too!) I’m meeting my husband for the first time. Thank you!
thank you so much for explaining this to us.. it really helps me to understand my dad and his Narcissistic ways.
The honesty is the best I feel like I can accept that and can work with that in a relationship the problem is I never get honesty it was always criticism, blame,neglect. But man if they were just saying hey it feels like shit when you say that I could be like oh damn my bad.
I don't think I'm a narcissist, but I do identify with how you feel when criticised. I feel it particularly so if it's a professional matter. I express the pain inwardly though - I attack myself and do whatever I can to mend the situation. So different way of dealing with it but the emotional response is exactly as you describe it.
Having low self esteem is what causes it. Narcs have VERY low self esteem, but so do other people.
We all are precious , no one should ever be shamed , everyone should be love and appreciated
Thank you so much for your candor. You're doing a great service here and helping a lot of people.
I just wanted to point out when you said; "If I care about you, why would I point out anything bad you've done?". It's such a beautiful statement, and a display of radical acceptance.
We point them out when they hurt us to ask them not to do it again but that triggers their shame spiral.
I think it’s about how as child narcissist have been used by a parent to « collect » accountability, shame and everything in world resulting in : pain.
I relate to what you said as my narcissist need me constantly to reflect she was doing ok even and this even when she hated me. Its ultra codependency.
And she was doing great effort to say things perfectly, like it was the Olympic Games.
Criticism : It’s like allergy, you can have a whole delicious meal, one slight drop of peanut butter and it’s death. For people it’s peanut butter, they want you to taste something delicious but to a narc it’s death = to them you want to kill them.
The work you do here is very precious because so much people use the word narcissist as… a critic, making remission almost impossible. So what about we stop the circle of illness ?
This video was very, very helpful
What you say is heartbreaking.
Great video, Jacob! 🌟🌞 So, as far as I understood, you say no one can give you any criticism, even constructive? But what if a person who loves or likes you needs to give you some good & valid criticism? How are they supposed to do it the best way? Is it possible??
PS: again great video!
He’s explaining this- there is no “constructive” criticism for a narc because it all feels like a thousand daggers to their soul. It’s not possible for them to see the good in being criticized. It’s CRUEL. Torture. Inhumane. And yes he understands logically that personal growth is important, but there’s nothing logical about a personality disorder. So let’s say that he found the strength to consider the criticism and not react with rage to receiving it- this goes back to the sky being red analogy. We KNOW logically that we are wrong because everyone else is telling us this and we see we don’t function like others, but no matter how many times you try to see it form their perspective- we STILL see a blue sky, not a red one. This is why narcissism isn’t curable. That F’d perspective will always be running the shots.
Hey Jacob.
When someone makes a suggestion, does the narcissist take that as criticism?
And if so, how do we effectively come to you guys to discuss something we mean no harm or criticism, but would like a more mutual beneficial outcome for both parties involved?
Thank you.
You approach your suggestions as a manner in which it could boost the narcissists image... So instead of "organize your ugly mess" you may say "others would be really impressed if this were organized:.. appeal to their self benefit first.
they are only concerned about themselves after all so keep that in mind
Much love! Keep growing your channel! ❤️🎼🥁🎼
Here's something to think about. I did a self development course that taught (and I found to be true) . The way you behave because of the fears and way you feel about yourself,. You actually makes others feel that way about them selves when they are around you. It's sticky
Please correct this. It makes no sense. I think this could be useful if written correctly.
@@timotimorrison3448 good call. It's been a long while since I've been through the exercises and have probably got it mixed up so it doesn't make sense.
Basically communicating with others through filters of your insecurities either feeds those insecurities or what I thought can make others feel insecure but I can't figure out how that works now. So I withdraw the comment except to say sort out your insecurities because the outcome is not good to hold on them which is pretty universal not really insightful
Oh I got you. Now that I has context I can self correct the tiny mistakes.
Just discovered your channel. Very insightful.
9:29 thank you Jacob. You taught me something very important about narcissism 🙌
This is my mindset!!
My mother who is a narcissist just disowned me. She wants to buy a car instead of financially support me. I’m in university right now and I can’t make my own money fortunately I will figure it out. Please get help and don’t birth a child please.
Holy shit spot on!
Hi Jacob, thanks for your interesting video. I have lots of physical things wrong with me. I don't have a mental illness or disorder. In my world, if someone criticises you all the time, they are not your friend. You don't have to drop them like a hot potato, you just gradually see less of them until you don't see them at all. Friends are people you have fun with. Nobody is perfect, and if you like being with someone despite their many irritating habits, see them when you like to. You don't have to see them all the time. If you like someone, it does not mean they are perfect or special. It just means you like having fun together. They may be special to you because you like being with them and you like doing things together. Some people you might like to see a lot, others you can still see but you may enjoy seeing them less often. You might like them a bit. No every person is there to be used. You can just have fun together.
If you love someone you won't point out their flaws? But why do narcissist devalue soon after idealising and make others insecure about everything?
I don't know why narcissist do those things. I don't idealize people or devalue them and if someone upsets me I stay away from them. I have pointed out people's flaws to others so that they won't make me work or associate with them. These flaws have to be pretty bad like insulting me, pushing me around, shouting at me, telling me off, humiliating me. Etc I'm just a normal woman = adult human female.
I'm a perfectionist. No one's perfect so I'm always gonna let myself down. It's terrible.
Me too. I am a straight A college student. I just finished my graduate program and for my final class I gave myself permission to get a B or a C because I had too much in my plate to focus on the class. I still got an A. I can’t not strive for perfection. And trust me, I tried.
A lot of this shame awareness/defensiveness feels so similar to *face saving* of Chinese culture, except there it's much more intertwined. Being a shame based culture, shame is actively used on the fly counter-balanced with honor, to control public behavior & public face (reputation).
re: 9:18 *if I'm super loyal & idealizing them I'll never point out and or at least I think that they do wrong*
In face saving rules, I would be super hesitant to directly publicly shame a person, BUT it's fair game and expected to constantly/regularly indirectly shame and nudge people towards better public face (help others save their own face).
This black and white framing of western culture might be due to guilt/law focus vs asian/traditional shame cultures.
If I'm loyal to a close friend and they have a gigantic blind spot, where they're losing face and making a fool of themselves, then helping them save face (public image/reputation/status is falling apart) is higher priority vs. saving their personal ego/feelings (I'm not wrong) by helping cover up their blind spots (enabling).
re: 9:28 *if it's somebody who's insulting me then yeah I'll go for every insecurity they have and trust me as somebody who is insecure about literally everything I pick up on that stuff*
I am also highly trained at constantly monitoring and tracking my own and everyone else's insecurities (shame awareness), and it's annoying as F to deal with neurotic's insecurities fully exposed on the surface, see them constantly deceive themselves, along with pushing and expecting me to keep up those appearances (or face more social demands).
My personal peeves as being both Chinese culture default, with autistic intensity/spontaneity tendencies, and having to code switch to just fit in.
I have SooOooO many questions and yet this was very informative Thanks 🤘
Watching this on the BIG SCREEN 📺
I also struggle with diminished object constancy, and it sucks, especially when I'm activated... But it really is a variable state, and we can learn to improve it by calming down the metabolism. I do liken this process to drug withdrawal... b/c it does require experimenting with very boring and low-excitement periods, where we learn to just chill for days or weeks at a time, but it is possible to at least experience a different metabolic intensity. Granted it's easy to get reactivated & we have to live with that, but a more chill metabolic state really is possible... if anything, just to experiment with it.
Today is the first time you have popped up on my feed. I have watched 4 or 5 of your vids now which I find interesting because I have never known a Narc that thought--or I guess would admit that they needed to change. I have also never heard any specialist say that someone with actual NPD could have any emotional empathy at all.
So, I'm not sure if you are a true narcissist or just have very strong narcissistic traits. It is odd to me that you could see a therapist, who's job it is to point out the things that aren't good about you, if you have such a strong reaction to your friends criticizing something about you. If they are your friend, they are doing it for the same reason a therapist would--they care about you getting better because they want you to be happy, or they want to keep being your friend because, for the most part, they like you. Maybe it would help you to think about it like that. Anyway, I'll keep watching, and I hope you can find some inner peace. I do Yoga Nidra, and it helps me a lot.
That was a great answer Jacob!
Its crazy that everything a narc feels other people are thinking or feeling, is just their own projection. Eg: you mentioning that any criticism feels like they're trying to hurt you (something a narc would do), or that if someone criticises you then you're not 'perfect' and that you're flawed and they will "hate you and you are nothing to them" (again something a narc will do).
It also makes me think that empathy is just pro-social projection. Often people feel empathy because they understand how someone thinks or feels. So projection is just a narc having anti-social empathy. I hope that makes sense 😅
Forgiving someone means you do not want to harm them for what they did to you. It means that you set them free for what they have done, But it does NOT mean trust is automatically repaired.
Trust must be earned, things are NOT automatically back to the way it was before because the trust has been destroyed.
You're pointing out that the sky is blue, but others see it as red, showing that you perceive yourself with a normal perspective and it is everybody else that is wrong.
It seems that you carry a scab. You believe that others are deliberately picking your scab and making you bleed. You will cover that scab with a false self to not ever
feel that hurt again.
I May have taken an ambien and stayed up past the recommended time.😬🤷♀️
@@Tailionis weird shit. Weirder than usual. Like one time, I felt like it made me feel super nurturing toward my cat so I started licking his head to show him I love him and consider him my family. The other times, it’s made me kind of actually very productive. I went out to my backyard to do something and got distracted by the weeds and started de-weeding the entire yard at midnight by hand. Another time, I decided to finally hang the heavy ass mirror in the guest room that I had put off doing for about a month.🤷♀️
Thank You for the profound Insight.This is good Medicine. Thank You for Sharing
Your videos have helped me so much!
If I forgive you but want to stay no contact it doent mean that youre good or bad, its means that I understand now why you did behave the way you did, but I know that it would be too much for me to go through this again so in order to protect myself and my mental health we have to stay no contact (especially if you are not willing to work on your issues)
I'm sure your childhood taught you to feel unloved by any negativity or criticism and that's so wrong how you were raised. You deserved to be raised with love and care and lots and lots of attention. I'm so sorry you didn't get those needs met. There are definitely ways to point out mistakes in a loving way in order to guide people through their lives, and perhaps this is something that triggers you because of your upbringing. I'll just say that there's a difference between harmful criticism and helpful critique. A parent will tell their child not to eat candy all day, and the child might see it as a mean and harsh criticism, but the parent knows such food will not nourish them properly. That type of critique comes from a place of concern and love. To not do it would be the ultimate unloving thing because you ignore that which doesn't matter to you.
7:58 You don't pretend that they're perfect.. you get hormones and chemicals in your brain when you bond strongly to someone and love them that even the negative looks good ❤
I always thought that when a narcissist take offense on objective criticism they do it on purpose to change the subject, gaslight and to start a fight cause they're eager for conflict lol how do I know that you really take things personally or that you're only trying to get away with the main subject and trying to make the other person look like a "personal persecutor"?
First, not every narc presents the same. Secondly- I don’t think he needs to prove anything to a rando on the internet. If you don’t believe him- then don’t believe him.!
Maybe there are aspects you’ve not valued in yourself and when it looks like someone is or intentionally criticising that trait it feels like the knife digs in deeper into your insecurity. If someone says something in a harsh, curt, sarcastic way it can hurt even more. You started it so I will finish it… I can see why you would feel a need to teach someone a lesson if you don’t feel safe around them or if you feel their drive is to hurt you. Pretty much taught to be on fight mode ever since childhood .
Can Vipassana meditation heal narcissism?
Do you do one on ones?
Why do you hate everything about you? As long as you don’t hurt people intentionally and do bad things in order to hurt them I don’t see the issue really. I know it can be painful, but life is for many of us… most actually at some points and for some almost all the time.
can you help us understand why you hate yourself? What are the parts of you that you hate and do you believe you are capable of accepting yourself at any point?
All I wanted from my ex was to be equally met , the fact of being perceived incorrectly hurt more then my being worthless and meaningless
As if I was just used for the whole relationship as a sex toy leaving me feeling raped
One of the hallmarks of relationships with pathologically narcissistic people is the cycle of good times and bad times, where the narcissist alternates between decent or loving behavior and cruel abusive or neglectful behavior. This is dynamic is caused by splitting, the process by which narcissistic personalities attempt to understand whole object relations. Narcissistic people have extreme difficulty with this and as a result their brain creates two different separate images of the same object when contradictory characteristics are encountered. In order to hold this new contradictory information this usually looks like a split where one understanding of the person is all good and the other is all bad. Ironically because narcissists engage in splitting they may actually accuse the other person of having what seems like multiple personalities or flipping like a switch when in actuality it is they who are doing that.
The cycle of narcissistic relationships alternates between idealization and devaluation. The good times with narcissistic personalities are predicated not on love but on idealization which is an imaginary way of viewing something as perfect and more valuable than it really is. The bad times with narcissistic personalities are predicated not on hatred or indifference but on devaluation which is an imaginary way of viewing something as more flawed and less valuable than it really is. Neither idealization nor devaluation are about the other person at all. They include no realistic understanding of the other person in any way. They are about the narcissist affected and even delusional way of seeing other people and themselves.
The narcissistic cycle ensnares the ego with idealization by building it up to tremendous heights and then crushing the ego brutally with devaluation, seemingly at random or for no reason. This is a cycle that intoxicates the ego inflates the ego and even tricks it into falling in love with its own importance, then rips all that away which causes the ego to endlessly chase for more, trying to explain, prove, reason in the hopes of receiving idealization again, but this cycle is not based on real emotions or actual love at all. Idealization definitely feels goodm anyone would like to be considered perfect but it's not love. It can't be because there's no bonding, no intimacy. It's not based in reality in any way and it includes no real understanding of the other person as a person at all. Even if you have genuine feelings for this person you are missing and romanticizing idealization from them not love and you don't need idealization it's just as toxic as devaluation.
Narcissists provoke emotions through attacking a perso's ego. Ego is the part of us that speaks as "I" it refers to your sense of self. There's a lot of ego involvement in relationships with narcissists on the part of the narcissist and for other people. The manipulations employed by narcissists generally involve the ego of other people and they consist of ego feeding, ego starving and ego shaming. Ego feeding happens during the idealization phase of the cycle where someone is flattered, love bombed, given gifts or excessive attention, compared favorably to other people and generally treated well -often exceedingly even unrealistically well. They may be seen as perfect or heroic by the narcissist, a rescuer a savior a soulmate. There's often a very intense focus on the person or the relationship. The person receiving this level of attention and idealization feels seen and loved in a way they have never been seen or loved before. Even if the level of intensity makes them uncomfortable at first, people in this phase of the cycle may do a lot to keep it going including abandoning other things in order to be with the narcissist as much as possible.
idealization feels good and it's usually that idealized image they had of us that we fell in love with and don't want to lose. It is a massive component of these relationships - regardless of whether they are family or romantic. When the narcissist's perfect, idealized image of you lines up with your perfect, idealized image of yourself, you feel like you're being seen in a way you were never seen before, and it's very hard to let go of that. Narcissists attack other people's sense of self relentlessly. Even during love bombing and idealization, they are not seeing you for who you are or allowing you to be that. They are reacting to a false image of you that they have created in their minds. At no point in the relationship are you seen for who and what you are, or are you allowed to be that. You are TOLD what these things are - constantly.
Love bombing is idealization and reacting to reactions. They a reacting to your reactions to the things around you. It's not hard to figure out what's important to somebody. It requires no intelligence or empathy at all. Love bombing is not giving it's taking. It involves boundary violations and the objectification of the other person, who is being to make the narcissist feel good. It's manipulation and theres no giving involved in manipulation at all. Flattery is not giving. Controlling someone is not giving. Violating boundaries is not giving. . Venting is not intimacy. Lying or making up problems to prey on the sympathy of others is not intimacy. Creating flying monkeys by engaging in smear campaigns is not intimacy. Love bombing is a bombardment of totally inappropriate, extreme, grandiose and boundary violating behaviour. Love-bombing and idealization are just as unhealthy as the rest of the relationship with a narcissistic person. It's not even really about whether it's real or it's not real, although many times it is just a manipulation. No matter what, this kind of extreme behavior is the sign of a toxic and/or dysregulated person.
Ego starving happens when the favorable comparisons stop. The excessive attention dwindles and the intensity is dialed back. The person is no longer seen as perfect or not as perfect, they're not seen as heroic or as a savior anymore. The cracks are starting to show, the new has worn off. The narcissist may appear to be bored or disengaged with the relationship. The other person is confused about why this is happening and upon receiving no real explanation from their narcissistic partner or family member they can come to believe that they must have caused that. This is an idea that is of course usually enthusiastically reinforced by narcissists who believe that all of their feelings are created by external forces and other people and never have an internal cause. In order to rectify this situation people will often go very far to try to bring the relationship back to good and get back to the place where they were seen as ideal because that feels so amazing.
Ego shaming occurs during the devaluation phase of the cycle where someone is accused, attacked, belittled demeaned, compared unfavorably to other people and generally treated very poorly. They may be seen as irredeemably flawed, unfailingly foolish or unrepentingly evil, an abuser, a saboteur not worthy of the narcissist's time. There may be a complete withdrawal from the relationship except for negative interactions. People in this phase of the cycle may do things they have never done or ever thought they would do because the pain of being seen as so bad when they were seen so ideally before is extreme- especially when there may seem to be no real reason for it at all or none that you can figure out. This phase may be followed by an exit from the relationship whether temporary or permanent or another idealization phase might occur. These relationships don't always follow a strict cycle of idealized, devalue, discard in that order. They can alternate between idealization and devaluation for years with a true discard never happening at all. The relationship may be abandoned, re-secured, abandoned, re-secured over and over again as it cycles through the phases. Often with hoovering occurring between these phases.
This can be extremely damaging to people. Ego trauma is an attack on your identity your sense of self. Narcissistic relationships are different from other toxic or abusive relationships in this key way. They involve a massive amount of ego trauma. Not just for the reasons that already mentioned, but because pathologically narcissistic people create false images of others and then they have a relationship with those images as if they're real. They act upon react to and interact with these images as if that's who somebody really is. They've also created false images of themselves and they expect other people to behave as though that's the reality of who the narcissist is. These images are often completely different from the actual objective experiences of everyone round the narcissistic person and the effect of this on somebody is that of extreme gaslighting. For example, being interacted with as if you are an untrustworthy thief when you've never stolen anything or being expected to react to a very physically abusive person as if they've never hurt a fly or being reacted to as if you're dangerous and scary when you've never done anything to provoke that response from somebody and much much more.
This goes beyond just being told that you're doing things that you're not doing . This is a complete immersion in an environment where you are relentlessly interacted with and reacted to as if you actually are somebody else. Like walking onto a part in a movie that you didn't know you were playing and there's this entire history and all these scenes that have happened that you have no idea what's going on and you don't know what anybody's talking about. This is relentless it never stops even for a second because this is their reality. Further, you expect to interact with and react to another person as if they're not who they are either. Even small challenges to these narratives may be met with extreme backlash, hostility and punishment. You are required to literally ignore the objective experience that makes up your reality and participate in a false one in order to exist in the relationship at all. This results in constantly conflicting realities. It is extremely confusing and disorienting for people and the damage that can be done to a person's sense of self is enormous if they are not aware that this is what's happening. The damage this does to children in particular is devastating, it can be cataclysmic. It's only when a person becomes an adult and can start to see these things for how they really are that they can start to assess the damage that has been done by this.
Narcissists devalue and discard for the same reason they idealize and love-bomb: because they are the only ones that matter. For the narcissistic personality giving is impossible. Even if they had the ability, which many do not, they consider it weakness. You can see this very clearly in the insistence of many narcissistic people that attempts to get them to give are manipulations designed to harm them or take advantage of them. Other toxic types of personalities have the same problem as well. The object of the game is to end up with all the marbles and if you give your marbles away then you cannot win the game, the game of survival at all costs. Emotional and energy resources are finite for these types of personalities. They simply don't have enough to share. When you couple that with the lack of empathy in the first place you end up with a personality that is unwilling to give in any way without extracting an enormous price for it and perhaps they're unable to give it all. Some people believe love bombing indicate empathy or the capacity to give but it doesn't. The best this person is capable of is the temporary appearance of giving or intimacy and that's all. When small children think of love, they think of what other people do for them because that is their only concept of love at that age. The narcissist is the same. They expect to be given all things, accepted in all things and forgiven for all things, with no caring or understanding that this is not a fair, reasonable or realistic way to have an adult relationship.
The victim becomes addicted to the drama a chaos not the narcissist. Drama and chaos work much the same way in the brain as opiates. Narcissists are also addicted to this. Another thing is, when you stop participating in the drama cycle, the narcissist continues on the script as if you are still reacting. This is often when you clearly see how disordered the person truly is, and how little any of it has to do with you and what you do. When people do this, they can often see how little they were even being heard, let alone somehow influencing or controlling the narcissist's behavior.. They are having a relationship with their fantasy of you and you are having a relationship with their fantasy of themselves. Their fantasy of themselves becomes your fantasy of them and then nobody in the relationship is accepting or even seeing the other person for who they really are. In order to truly care about somebody you have to see them for who they really are. in all phases of the cycle of the relationship the narcissistic person sees a fantasy projection of you. when their fantasy projection of you lines up with your idealized self you will believe they are seeing you as you truly are, that's the trap. The idealization that occurs in a healthy relationship is nowhere near as extreme as what happens in narcissistic relationships. The reality of people is not completely different from what you see or what is projected of them. In healthy relationships when people find out that the other person is not as perfect as they thought they were they're able to adjust to that and still have a relationship. This does not happen in relationships with narcissistic people. The discovery that you are not perfect and neither are they is devastating for them. When a person is placed on such a high pedestal there's nowhere to go but down and the fall to the bottom it's far.
We often find that even when people know someone is not an honest person and/or has unreliable perception, they will still often internalize the negative things said about them, as if in this one specific area, the narcissist or other toxic person is somehow magically not only telling the truth, but also living in reality. This is not the case. Everything they say has the same value as far as honesty and perception goes. Their insults and criticisms are just as overblown as their idealizations, and vice-versa.
Part of this is because people with a strong narcissistic pathology often hide behind personas created to manipulate others for survival. People incorrectly assume that if that persona or façade is not real, the opposite of it must be the truth or the reality of who this person is, therefore what they say and do during these times is true. This is understandable but it's mistaken. Their honesty and perception are no more valid or unaffected during these times. The truth is, both the nice and mean sides - and any others - that you might see are personas or masks in a manner of speaking. Both of these personas or sides of their personality were created to do the same thing: enable the narcissist to survive.
For example, the anger, cruelty and abuse that you see are defensive, even they don't appear to be. This comes out when the narcissist perceives a threat. It may not be a threat you can understand, but it doesn't matter. You not seeing or recognizing a threat anywhere has nothing to do with whether or not they think there is one. This person does not think like you do. They don't come to the same conclusions that you do. They just don't, and that's all there is to it. They respond to emotions they don't understand, that they may not even be aware they are feeling and many react immediately with guns blazing, ready to eliminate any threat. Others retreat completely, cutting off communication or even contact until they feel that the threat is gone. It is a primitive, childish defense mechanism created and perpetuated by their enormous emotional immaturity.
Almost all of the ways pathologically narcissistic people deal with conflict (both internal or external) are childish, and often, so is much of their communication. narcissists are like little kids on the playground; they will keep throwing insults at someone until something upsets them and once they see what that insult is, they will keep repeating it because it works. This is one reason controlling our own reactions to our emotions is so important. By not doing that, you yourself are supplying them with the ammunition they are hitting you with. This is another reason it makes no sense to believe the things they say. They are not operating off of reality or facts in any way. They are operating solely off of your reaction. They don't care if it's true or not. They care that you care. Upsetting you makes them feel powerful and superior, exactly like those kids on the playground. Narcissists may or may not have any real understanding of what they are doing; a lack of empathy suggests that they really don't have any true understanding, but it doesn't really matter, since they don't care anyway because that's not the point. You are not the point. You are simply a tool being used in the endless endeavor to make themselves feel better. Any actual empathy they may have is cancelled out by this fact regardless.
it's important to understand though that what we're really talking about here is somebody's opinion. That's it. That's all it is no matter how important it seems. No matter how much it hurts, in the end that's it that's all it is. It's somebody's opinion. Not only is it somebody's opinion, it's the opinion of a person who is profoundly unable to see things as they truly are in any way. It is not reality and it should never carry more weight than your own opinion of yourself. Nobody's opinion should. Self-esteem is called self-esteem because it's what we think of ourselves. The ego manipulations of narcissistic people are designed to interfere with that. This is how they function, they derive their own worth completely from other people's opinions and this is the only way they know how to interact with anybody else "I decide my worth based on other people's opinions of me and they decide their worth based on my opinion of them" It is up to us to not allow that to happen. When we do the ego work that is necessary in order to heal from these relationships we will find that the idealized , devaluation cycles no longer affect us in the same way because we aren't as vulnerable to idealization anymore. We don't need to be idealized and we're no longer totally crushed by being devalued. It still hurts because being devalued by anybody would hurt but it doesn't devastate us. When we know who and what we are and who and what we are not, this is the best armor you can have against ego trauma someone else cannot define you and then destroy you by capriciously changing that definition when you define yourself. Get to a place where the toxic ego manipulation perpetuated by a narcissistic person is no longer effective on you. You don't need other people to see you as perfect or flawless or anything like that.Be okay with who you are and it's okay that they don't see you that way
@@janx8695 wow thanks many wise words
My father my brother my ex lover my everything
I wish I could take away his pain
Thank you
My god this is hard to listen too…so irritating
Lol! You said doo doo. @8:30 marker 😂 Sorry… definitely not making fun of what you said… it’s that I’m a 45 yr old female with the mind of a child who turns everything into something gross or perverse.🤷♀️😂
Is this a plea to someone you lost??? Because narcissists DO NOT pretend their loved one or target is perfect PERIOD! Narcissist criticize all that is good in those closest to them. What you are saying about yourself not able to handle criticism…yes we all have learned that about narcisssits….but when you talk about how you treat friends that they are All good is weird and not indicative of how narcs treat others. Sorry it’s weird
Ok so listening to more of this , you are now revealing how narcs really do to others, you just admitted if they insult or criticize YOU…you will go after all THEIR insecurities. In other words, if you PERCEIVE them to ridicule you, you will do the vile attack and shred them to pieces with all the know you have on them. Now That’s better,because that’s truth of how narcs operate and sorry, but sometimes it’s damaging to the point of no return because the target a.k.a loved one, friend…now sees just how brutal,cruel and untrusting you are. And it’s not always forgivable, it’s better to cut you out and move on.
Thats why you dont like Dr. Ramani. :)
Every time you feel the need to say you're smart, it, low key, makes you look like a prick. Just let your videos speak for themselves. You're better than that. They paint you better than that.
The reason you can be forgiven but not be trusted is such a basic concept that is hard for a lot of people to grasp. Just because someone accepts what you've done doesn't mean they're willing to allow it to happen to them again.
- Unsure
The road to recovery from abusive childhood conditioning is NOT linear and it’s NOT simple.
- A recovering BPD
The only thing I don't like about you us that you keep using the F curse word! 😮
So interesting. This insecurity and protection against anything that might make you feel inferior really strikes at your core? It's like an ultra-sensitive nerve that gets agitated at the smallest thing. I wonder if truly knowing yourself will help against these criticisms/insults. Because if you truly know yourself, when someone else criticizes you or your work, you can then ask yourself: 'is that criticism accurate?" and if the answer is "no" than you can dismiss it and not be as affected...? If that criticism is accurate, then you might actually be appreciative of the person who made it for bringing something to your attention you didn't recognize, you can then try and see how to improve and make yourself or your work "better". As mentioned, if it's not accurate, then just disagree with the person who made it, and move on, knowing that you know yourself better than someone else and/or your work to be what it truly is (I think this is what being "self confident" is all about)...the other aspect of all of this is whether you actually care about what the person making the criticism says? If their criticisms are off-base or you don't care who they are, just disregard. If it's someone you genuinely care about and they criticize you, know that it's likely coming from a place of love or misunderstanding, and they likely want you and/or your work to be the best it can possibly be. Not because they are intentionally trying to hurt you or attack who you are as a person...All the best, narcissism seems to be such a maladaptive thought process that will likely take some serious effort to overcome...Maybe look at it as a "challenge" you have to overcome in your life? We all have challenges we need to overcome in our lives. This just happens to be one of yours...
This is one of the many ways we can differentiate between narcissism and healthy self-esteem: a healthy person can laugh off, ignore or even logically evaluate criticism because he is secure; the narcissist cannot do this because he is not secure. That's why they are hyper-sensitive to criticism both real and imagined.
It's pretty well-known to those who've had to deal with narcissistic people that narcissists don't deal with mistakes very well. Whether you made one or whether they did, there's bound to be a problem over it.If you are the one who made the mistake, the narcissist may either be crushed that you are not perfect or overjoyed that you've messed up. Either way, you are going to hear about it. It is not uncommon for pathologically narcissistic people to fly into a rage over very minor mistakes, attacking the other person relentlessly and attempting to annihilate their character for something as small as bringing the wrong item from the store or simple forgetfulness.
There can be a few reasons for this. Many times, it's because the narcissist doesn't believe it is a mistake in the first place. They are sure you have malicious motives. They are certain you've done this thing on purpose to upset, sabotage or otherwise harm them. They take it as a personal attack and an offense. And of course, any attack on a narcissist will be avenged. If they do believe that it was unintentional, they may still attack or demean people anyway because it is a chance to make themselves feel better. Any flaw or failure on another person's part is an opportunity to elevate themselves and many narcissists will jump at this opportunity.
Sometimes narcissistic people will attack loved ones for making mistakes because they cannot stand the idea that the person is not perfect. Not only do they feel this reflects badly on them, but a narcissist's idea of love is very immature, unrealistic and idealized. A partner that is not being devalued and discarded is usually being put on a pedestal. When this perfect partner messes up or fails somehow, this crushes the narcissist. They feel betrayed and tricked, and horribly let down. It's not unlike the way a child feels when they are forced to see their parents as ordinary humans before they are ready to understand or accept this fall from grace. It's a very traumatic experience, and it usually alters the relationship permanently.
Regardless of the reason, narcissists cannot abide mistakes. And if mistakes are difficult to accept from other people, they intolerable from the narcissist themselves. Everyone who has dealt with a pathological narcissist knows how far they will go not to admit or accept that they've made a mistake. But this denial is a lot more than just not wanting to be wrong. To most people, a simple mistake is usually not that big of a deal. It can be embarrassing, depending on the type of mistake but generally, we all understand that everyone makes mistakes.
To a narcissist, making a mistake - any mistake - is unacceptable. It's unforgivable. Mistakes to the narcissist are the ultimate proof they are not special or superior, which means that, behind the false self, all the horrible, hateful things they secretly believe about themselves are true. They really are worthless, they really are garbage, they really are stupid. This is of course ridiculous. Making a mistake means none of these things, but because of the narcissist's delusional shame and pathological self-hatred, it only takes something small to shatter the illusion they are trying to advance, and that tidal wave of bad feelings comes pouring through. Something as small as not remembering the date can be enough to trigger huge feelings of shame. It sounds absurd to most people, but this is the miserable reality that pathologically narcissistic people are living in.
This is why they need to blame their mistakes on other people. They need an out, a way to nullify and invalidate those bad feelings. If they can't do that, the feelings will overwhelm them and they are unable to deal with it. That is pretty much the reason they do everything. Their life is nothing but one long, constant attempt to escape those horrible, overwhelming feelings. It's why they rage, it's why they lie, it's why they manipulate and gaslight and why they created a false self in the first place. All of their efforts are directed toward the same thing. Sadly, it's like trying to hold the ocean back with a broom. The facade is so fragile that even a very small mistake sends the whole thing crashing down.
Imagine if your opinion of yourself were so delusional and negative that making a simple mistake could cause you to decompensate, even to become suicidal if you couldn't blame it on somebody are else and were forced to acknowledge it. This is their reality. And this is why relationships with pathologically narcissistic people will always be unfair and abusive. They are literally one small mistake away from total disaster all the time.
Nobody likes to be wrong, but narcissists take it so far beyond where most people would. They will make up lies, they will invent facts, they will attack you personally and even physically in an effort to get you to admit they are right. To the narcissist, every situation they find themselves in is a contest where they have to be the winner. To be wrong - even about something really small or silly - means losing. Losing or being incorrect represents a failure to the narcissist. Narcissists cannot take the feelings of self-hatred and shame that come from even very small failures or mistakes, and those feelings are triggered very easily. That is why they often explode when they feel criticized or make a mistake, even if it's really not that big of a deal to everybody else. Those feelings simply must go somewhere and narcissists are unable to carry the feelings themselves. They have to give them to someone else to carry because the burden is just too great.
They try to stave off those feelings as long as possible, with arguing in circles, personal attacks, denial, derailing the conversation... anything to not have to accept that they are wrong about something. If you ever do succeed in breaking through the denial and proving to the narcissist they are in fact wrong, you will be accused of cheating, of fabricating evidence, of colluding with people against the narcissist or whatever else they have to say to convince themselves that they are still not really wrong. It isn't you they are trying to convince. It's themselves -- and anyone who may happen to be listening.
If accusing the other person of wrongdoing fails, you will often see a complete reversal of position in which they now claim it is they - not you - who have been providing the correct information all along. The fact that this completely contradicts reality does not matter to them at all. People often ask me how narcissists can do that, and the answer is that narcissists have no truth and they don't care about the specifics anyway. Not really. What they care about is being right. Being wrong means failing. Failing again, creates feelings of shame and self-hatred which are very painful and overwhelming to the narcissist. This can even lead to self-harming or suicidal feelings over very small mistakes. These are miserable, sad, unstable people, even though many of them don't appear to be that way.
That's why they argue so hard and so viciously. Most people - people who are not narcissists - will accept that they are not going to get anywhere in a conversation or a debate after a certain point. Narcissists cannot accept that because they need validation from other people. If the other person does not validate them, that is to say, if the other person does not say the narcissist is right, the narcissist feels rejected and attacked. Invalidated. It is not about the subject of the argument for the narcissist, and it never was. It's about the person they are arguing with validating them and proving they have worth.
When the person continues to tell them they are wrong or mistaken, the narcissist understands this as a personal attack and they see the person as the cause of those horrible feelings of shame and self-hatred. This is senseless and unfair, but the narcissist does not see that. They believe they feel badly because the other person is attacking them. They react in self-defense of their very lives, which looks like a huge overreaction to the other person, who does not understand why the narcissist is so upset over something so small. To the narcissist it does not feel small. They walk around all day every day for their entire lives feeling worthless, unlovable and wrong. They feel wrong all the time, about everything. That's why everything is a competition to them: they desperately want to get rid of the feeling that they are a useless loser. A failure. So they make everything a contest and sadly, because they are only fighting to win, they are still wrong more often than they are right. This just makes them feel worse, so it becomes an endless cycle of argue, attack, deny. Narcissists are in such deep denial about so many things that they cannot see reality in it's true perspective at all.