11 Ways to Recognize a Covert Narcissist

if you suspect you're in the thick of it with a covert narcissist or if you suspect your ex was a covert narcissist and you're just realizing that you are subject to emotional abuse for the entire relationship this video is for you in this video I'm gonna walk through 11 signs of covert narcissism so these are going to be 11 ways to recognize a covert narcissist and I have to tell you it is not always easy so you're gonna want to stay tuned to hear all 11 to see how many of those apply in your situation stay tuned hi and welcome to the common ego community my name is Christina and I'm gonna walk you through 11 ways to recognize a covert narcissist so if you suspect that you're dealing with or have recently dealt with a covert narcissist this video is going to help you identify whether or not you might be right so one of the most dangerous things about covert narcissism is that the abuse is so often subtle and that makes it difficult to detect but it still has an effect on you in your emotional well-being especially when it's drawn out over time now covert narcissists much like overt narcissists they have a grandiose sense of self and entitlement but the difference between the two and what makes the covert narcissist harder to spot is that the covert narcissist can actually be outwardly insecure if you know a little bit about narcissism you probably know about the overt type and until recently maybe you haven't learned about the covert narcissist and the covert narcissist can come across very sheepish even almost self-deprecating at times but when you get into a relationship when you get to know this person very well you'll see the grandiosity and you'll see the expectation and there's one thing Before we jump into the 11 reasons there's one thing I want to ELQ so narcissists as much as so many people like to say they're evil and soulless they are actually human so they are going to have variations in the personalities the ways the abuse and even some characteristics so you may not notice all eleven on this list but if you can spot say seven that should be enough for you to know that this person is abusive and you need to get away it's not going to change if you're dealing with somebody who has a personality disorder like covert narcissism alright so let's jump to it the first sign that you're dealing with a covert narcissist this is the first thing you'll notice is a really really really intense soulmate connection and I have a video about that that really digs deep into it but for now I'm just gonna say that this is the love-bombing phase they go hard and fast because they feel that intensity they feel that connection with you and they they believe you're perfect they idealize you at this time and you're feeling that and it feels amazing I mean who wouldn't want that right but the problem with the covert narcissist is that it always will turn to abuse over time so if you're with somebody who maybe says I love you really really fast like maybe two weeks three weeks a month in you're just getting to know this person but yet they say I love you that's a red flag that you might be dealing with a covert narcissist now other people do this and people do this for various reasons it could be a different type of personality disorder that you're dealing with or it could just be somebody who's overly eager and doesn't understand love but this is very common in narcissism so if you get into a relationship with somebody who wants to move things really really quickly and you're concerned that you might be dealing with an artist for sure put on the brakes you don't necessarily have to walk away just put on the brakes until you can look for other signs and if you can clear this person and say hey that was the only thing that was off then you're good but it's often not when somebody has this intense need to create a quick connection with you a quick intense connection with you it's usually not a good situation okay so number two and this is something that we probably would never admit while we're in it because you're in that love-bombing phase and you feel so great and you think this person is amazing but I know and I've heard so many stories from survivors who have admitted after the fact yeah something was a little bit off and it might be just a feeling you get like your gut is telling you something is a little just not right you know you don't know what it is you don't necessarily know that it's bad at that time but something's just off it's not it's not right it might be a look in their eyes or maybe they react to certain things in a way that's different from anything you've seen before like you would never expect them to react in a certain way that they do you're like huh that's weird this can be a sign that you're dealing with the covert narcissus if you're getting love bombed by somebody who seems like there's something a little bit off about them I would take that as a major major red flag and we're gonna get to the other steps to see if the person you're dealing with might exhibit them number three number three can go along with number two but number three is the cognitive dissonance that you experience as a result of being with this person this explains what happens within you when someone's actions and words are not aligned so you have a choice to make you can trust yourself you can trust the actions and you can trust your intuition or you can trust the words and the story that the person is feeding you and most of the time when we get to this phase where you start recognizing that there is a difference between actions and words and it's more than just something that is a little bit off about somebody you're starting to notice that they're not really doing what they're saying they're gonna do or they say they love me and they don't act like they love me or whatever actions and words are not aligned by the time you get to this point you're usually a little bit further into the relationship okay so number four is an intense need to win and this is a classic sign of narcissism but what I want to say about covert narcissists is that it's not always as obvious as you might think it to be so you might have a stereotypical view of what a narcissist looks like and this person would never ever ever in a million years admit that they're wrong well that's not true imagine somebody going through their entire life without ever apologizing without ever admitting they're wrong they wouldn't get very far right there are times when you have to admit that you did something wrong and narcissus do theirs they're human right they have to are part of this society and they have to play by the rules to a certain extent so you may get an apology from a narcissist the difference between an apology from a narcissist an apology from somebody else is that the apology from somebody else might be sincere so that person might apologize for doing something that hurt your feelings and then not do it again but the narcissist if they apologize for hurting your feelings they aren't most definitely gonna do it again and again and again because they're not really sorry and you'll also notice this intense need to win and just silly little arguments it could be something where the person is so clearly wrong and you have evidence that they are wrong but they twist it around to make them look right and you're just wondering well why would you go through all this trouble for something so silly why not just admit you're wrong but it's part of the disorder they can't see for themselves that they're wrong admitting that they are wrong is admitting that they are not perfect and grandiose and special and that's very difficult near impossible for a narcissist to do so again sometimes they might do it over something silly because they know they have to because they know they have to play by society's rules right but it's not sincere okay number five the covert narcissist will be an expert at justifying their bad behavior so a covert narcissist may tell you that they cheated in a past relationship but there's always a but they did it because of X Y & Z and you know maybe in hindsight I shouldn't have done it but you know there was I had good reason I had good reason if you notice that in every situation where this person is telling you a story where you're thinking well I wouldn't have done quite that but yet it seems like this person had no choice but to make the morally corrupt decision you might be dealing with a covert narcissist because they are experts at justifying their bad behavior okay number six comes back to you so how do you feel when you're with this person and this is something that you can gauge throughout their relationship in the beginning in the very beginning of the love-bombing phase you're gonna feel amazing but as soon as the devaluation stage begins and they start subtly picking you apart and saying things that make you feel bad you may not recognize it because it's so subtle but you'll feel it you'll take it on so what's happening is that in the beginning they idealized you they you were awesome and then I say got to know you they realized that you were human and that you have flaws like everyone else but that's not acceptable for a narcissist they deserve earth in their opinion someone who is perfect so when they see your flaws that's all they can see is your flaws and even if they aren't outright telling you hey look at this flaw look at that flaw look at this look they're not pointing it out outright it's going to come out they're going to say it in one way or another or even maybe just it's the way they look at you it's usually a combination of things with a covert narcissist the abuse can be very very subtle which is why it's difficult to detect and which is why I always recommend that people take note of how they feel in the relationship if you can recognize that you feel worse about yourself when you're with this person then you did before you got into this relationship there's a very good chance you're dealing with emotional abuse at the hands of a covert narcissist or someone else it's the diagnosis doesn't really matter but it's emotional abuse and you need to start distancing yourself from this person number seven is that you might notice some disproportionate rage or anger so you can be having a conversation about something and you totally don't expect this person to blow up but they do and you you don't understand it you don't feel like if you were having a conversation with a rational adult that they would blow up like this person is but something just set them off and this happens with covert narcissists very often actually and it could happen with overt narcissist - but with covert narcissists again there are very insecure people but they still need to hold up the facade right they need to believe that they're special and they need you to reflect that back to them so if you touch on some thing that is especially sensitive to them something that's part of their made-up identity and you start poking a hole in it you don't realize you're doing it but you start poking a hole in it it can set them off it can set them into a narcissistic rage and you're left like thinking what just happened here you know we were just having you a playful conversation or yeah or arguing but I didn't think I said anything that terrible it's because what you said challenged this person's belief of themselves and because we know that belief is false challenging it can make that person see if only for a second that it's false and that is extremely painful for our narcissist and so they are likely to fly off the handle at little things like this so number eight is something that you probably know very well if you have been in a relationship with a covert narcissist number eight is gas lighting so gas lighting often happens around cheating not always it could be anything I mean gas lighting could happen with a narcissist at work but in a romantic relationship it often happens around cheating so here's how it might look so the narcissist is in fact cheating with an ex or with a one-night stand with somebody with anybody with everybody who knows the nurse this is cheating you get either a gut feeling that something is off about this specific situation or maybe you even have some proof maybe you have a whole lineup of circumstantial evidence that this person is cheating so enough to prove in a court of law if there was such a court of law that this person was cheating and you confront them with whatever it is your gut feeling your evidence whatever it is you confront them that person is the narcissist who is she is likely to blow up and turn the tables on you so this person is going to try to enrage you all the while turning the behavior on you they might even accuse you of cheating or they might just accuse you of being crazy you overreact about all these things and they'll bring all kinds of stuff into it and if you get wrapped up in the emotion of it because that's they're trying to do they're trying to pull your strings so you get distracted and don't focus on the topic at hand where they're clearly wrong if you follow that if you fall into the emotional trap you'll end up kind of almost confused like wait a second what just happened here you know I I had some things that I wanted to talk about and this person just suddenly I'm defending myself what just happened here so that's gas lighting and that is a very clear sign of an emotionally abusive person if not a covert narcissist and last things I have on this list are quite specific to narcissism some of the things we talked about could be any emotionally abusive person and the last things on this list are pretty specific to narcissism could be a different personality disorder but I wanted to give you a few ways that you could recognize the characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder playing out in your relationship because that's what's really important if you want to know if you're dealing with somebody who has narcissistic personality disorder and not somebody who's just full of themselves it's important to know these things so number nine is an apparent lack of emotional empathy an emotional empathy is when you can feel someone else's emotion and this is different from being an empath being an empath is kind of like a higher level of that so that's kind of a separate conversation but most neurotypical people can feel other people's emotions on some level so if you're around somebody who's sad you understand you can relate you remember a time that you were sad like that and you just feel a natural pull to try to maybe say or do something to make the person feel better this is completely natural for most people but narcissists don't have the ability to feel other people's emotions on that level some narcissists may have some level of emotional empathy but and they definitely have cognitive empathy which means they understand they understand if I do this you'll feel this way but they don't feel it so how this plays out in your relationship how you might see this is you could end up in a situation where you're in a relationship with somebody who seems to have empathy and this is very common because we can't really get on in this world without having empathy because if you do then people will kind of look at you funny right like if somebody's crying in front of you and you just look at sucks for you people will think you're cold and heartless and inhuman but that's really what the narcissist feels I'll kind of flex for you it's inconveniencing me that you're crying right now but they can't act on that all the time so a lot of times they will pretend to have empathy and this is a skill this pretending is a skill that they've built up over many years of their life so they can watch how other people react or watch movies to see what might be appropriate in certain situations and this is also why one of the earlier signs was that you they may react in a way that seems off in a certain situation because it is off because they don't actually they're not reacting out of their instincts or they've got the feeling they're reacting because they think it's what they're supposed to do and sometimes they could be wrong so you may enter situations where they're kind of acting weird around something and it's usually involving empathy because they don't really have that that emotional empathy that most people do and they're faking it but in those moments where they're faking it or even if they get it slightly off you're probably not gonna jump straight to well this person has no empathy for the most part we give people the benefit of the doubt right so you're gonna think well that was just a little bit off so you'll continue on this relationship until the narcissist that you're with if it is a narcissist eventually the mask will slip and they're going to let it show that they don't care about something that most people would so say it's you you're their romantic partner and you're upset about something you're telling them you need their support and they just say no I'm sorry I'm you know I just wanna watch TV can you just leave me alone and that's not something if you care about somebody if you love somebody that's not something that an emotionally healthy person would do and it's really not something that somebody with their emotional empathy in tact would really be able to do so if you've ever noticed moments like this and it could be with you or it could be with somebody else if you ever notice those moments where somebody seems this person seems extremely cold and heartless you might be dealing with a covert narcissist number 10 is a very black-and-white perception of themselves and of others but what you'll see most often is the perception of others mostly you so if you're in an argument with a narcissist you might feel like this person is pulling out all the punches they're saying things that you wouldn't say to somebody you really care about they almost seem to despise you in the moment and it's confusing because you love this person you think you love each other but in those moments this black-and-white thinking in those moments the narcissist can't separate the bad feelings from the good feelings and this is part of the condition so it's something that you're gonna see come through quite often and again they could fake it there could be some cases where there things are a little bit gray for them but over time you're going to see cases where this black and white way of thinking kind of comes through so you're in an argument the narcissist hates you the argument is over maybe you apologize to the narcissist and boosts his ego and he loves you so this is another sign that you might be dealing with a covert narcissist okay so the final way to recognize a covert narcissist in your relationship is if you feel especially insecure whenever you're not physically with this person if you feel like this person is not super attached to you unless they're almost physically attached to you you could be dealing with a covert narcissist because covert narcissist and other types of narcissists they struggle with something called object constancy so if you're not in front of them they it's difficult for them to remember the feelings they had when you were in front of them and they will remember them again when you're in front of them again but well you're not there they're not thinking all those there's positive thoughts they're not thinking they love you or whatever and this is why narcissists are so likely to cheat because they don't have those feelings towards you when you're not with them but they do have those feelings towards somebody who is in front of them at the moment so this lack of object constancy explains a lot of the reason why narcissists cheat but it also could explain if you've been in a relationship with somebody who might break up with you whenever you're not like physically in the same state or city for an extended period of time so you go on vacation and you get you get a breakup text or call or whatever this could be a narcissist this is another kind of classic move of a covert narcissist okay so now we have eleven ways to recognize a covert narcissist and I want to hear from you if you're dealing with someone or have dealt with someone who you believe is a covert narcissist how many of those eleven can you identify in this person let me know in the comments and if you found this video helpful please let me know by hitting the like button subscribe and hit that notification bell see you next time

Channel: Common Ego

Views: 623,669

Rating: 4.8909693 out of 5

Keywords: how to recognize a covert narcissist, narcissist, narcissistic, narcissistic abuse, npd, why narcissists cheat, gaslighting, emotional abuse, insecurity, cheating, common ego, covert narcissist, #covertnarcissist

Id: ZVhaX76X6iI

Length: 25min 8sec (1508 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 18 2019