4 Communication Tactics Narcissists Use

now most of the time narcissistic ghosters will not come back and Hoover now it certainly certainly can happen but the ghosters do tend to be the ones with the avoidant attachment style so they're the ones who leave the kitchen as soon as the heat comes on and then they tend not to come back into the kitchen again today we're going to take on a very common issue in narcissistic relationships called the silent treatment if you've ever experienced it you know what it is before I start talking about the silent treatment though please hit that subscribe button and join this channel hit that Bell if you want to get notifications and as always when you come up with ideas for videos please don't hesitate drop them down in the comments because it's your suggestions that often Drive the kinds of content I research and develop so let's talk about the silent treatment it is so frustrating okay if you've ever been through you're like oh I know what you're talking about the silent treatment is definitely one of the key weapons in the narcissist's Arsenal many of you have asked me about this I've gotten countless comments emails you name it so here we go uh maybe this belonged in the glossary series I don't know regardless here it is so do with it what you will so the silent treatment is exactly what it sounds like now let's let me give you I'll give you an example one day perhaps you have an argument with somebody narcissistic or difficult in your life or maybe that you issue a small criticism or they just didn't like something you said or did that happens and they just stop talking to you they just stop now if you don't live with them they may stop answering any Communications and may stop responding and stop reaching out if you do live with them they will live in Silence with you and if you talk to them they will either ignore you or if it is essential they may say something at best they'll give you a one-word answer yes no over there or they'll engage in a verbal gesture hey you'll say Hey where's the keys and they will then put the keys in front of you and walk away without a word now if you have ever lived with any of this you know it and it is miserable you would almost just rather have the fight and not deal with this it is an uncomfortable and very difficult way to live and it's always kind of hanging over your head this idea that oh my gosh the silent treatment is going to come again so let's talk about the five classical reasons for the silent treatment the first reason the first reason is stonewalling or manipulation in other words what they're doing is they're using the silent treatment as a way to maybe draw out an apology to punish you to get you to do something that they may want to do or want you to do so it's very much this by stonewalling you the reason it's considered to be a form of manipulation is because then it becomes a way of using their silence almost as a sort of a source of power of sorts so that is one reason that they do engage in the silent treatment it just becomes a manifestation of stonewalling with the result of manipulation and then you end up behaviorally doing something they want or in essence they kind of almost get their needs met the second thing that is seen within the silent treatment is gaslighting what we can sometimes see is that they will when somebody gives you the silent treatment it almost feels as though your reality is being absolutely denied you are in a room and you're with a person and they are not talking to you and you're thinking is this really happening and then you might even start blaming yourself maybe I was wrong maybe I shouldn't have said that this is my fault let me instead of seeing that the silent treatment is completely unacceptable you may actually start twisting your reality in a way that you're blaming yourself and that in some way this silent treatment can actually feel like it becomes acceptable it's not a third element that is at play in stonewalling is that it's a manifestation of an emotional immaturity or really like a lack of interpersonal skill when you think about what the silent treatment is I don't know if you've ever watched a two and a half year old hold his or her breath they will sometimes hold their breaths until they pass out so it is that I'm gonna get my way and then they pass out that's the silent treatment in an adult I'm not getting my way I'm not gonna talk it's a tantrum it's a quiet tantrum but it is nonetheless a tantrum and Tantrums are for children so when somebody is throwing one as an adult through this the silent treatment it very much is a manifestation of not only emotional immaturity but a real lack of interpersonal skill because what it really shows is an incapacity to communicate as an adult about something that's uncomfortable and because narcissists find it so difficult to take personal responsibility for something that they may have said wrong or misunderstood or they're really not able to find common ground that lack of interpersonal skill means instead of actually having an evolved adult conversation they will just simply do the silent treatment which ultimately is a form of manipulation which will end up drawing you out and you still have to be the only grown-up in the room reason number four that can often draw out the silent treatment is dysregulation and what do I mean by dysregulation dysregulation is the inability to regulate emotions in any way it is why for example narcissists are so prone to rage something happens to them and they film they blow up instead of again having an adult tempered conversation so when we look at dysregulation with the silent treatment it's as though there's so much strong petulant feeling that instead of being able to regulate that feeling they are actually manifesting this absolutely dysregulated anger by being completely silent and what it does is it almost creates exactly the same tension as a rage episode would but because they can't manage strong emotion they either fully explode or completely withhold but either way the emotion is not getting appropriately communicated and either way whether Rage or silent treatment it can be experienced as very punitive by the other person in the relationship a fifth driver of the silent treatment is The Chronic victimhood we see in a narcissist whoo is me nothing goes my way nobody understands me I guess I just won't talk and it can feel very passive aggressive The victimhood Driven silent treatment is something we far more often see in a covert narcissistic pattern but the silent treatment is a part of every narcissistic pattern I've talked about for example in the neglectful narcissistic relationship the neglectful narcissist lives and dies by the silent treatment they are almost it's like permanently what they call home it's rare that they do talk the malignant narcissist will often use the the silent treatment as a form of Menace or to control you the covert narcissist again from that place of victimhood but there is this very victimized sense about all kinds of narcissists magnified in the covert narcissist but the silent treatment is as though woe is me and it becomes sort of this passive aggressive acting out that ultimately leaves you sometimes even taking the blame in these conversations a final sorry a final piece of the silent treatment we haven't considered is the talking through model of the silent treatment and by that I mean it's a very manipulative tool that I've talked about in other videos where they won't talk to you but they will talk through other people will you please tell your mother that the keys are hanging by the door will you please tell your father that I won't be joining him for dinner so it's kind of sort of a pseudo-silent treatment because obviously you can hear what they're saying but they're making this this dramatic histrionic show of I'm not going to talk to them I'm only going to talk to whomever this third party is and if you ever grew up like this and this is a very triangulated theme where one a narcissistic parent will use you as the child as the communication device to be able to punish the other spouse with the silent treatment but then draw their kids into this triangulated space the silent treatment although it very much can come through the stonewalling space gaslighting emotional immaturity or lack of interpersonal skill dysregulation and victimhood that those are really the five primary drivers for why the silent treatment comes through it can manifest in many different ways one word answers absolute silence talking through other people and non-response no matter what it is a classical part of a narcissistic relationship here's the key though how do you master it don't give into it you can outplay them it's a bit like a staring contest you had as a kid they're going to give you that silent treatment you're often going to fall into that trap of maybe this is my fault maybe I need to apologize because you just want to break that tension of the silent treatment you can really train yourself to not give in and say okay I can do I can do a little bit of a Post-It world I can I can communicate like this because you have put so much time and effort into trying to save this rather broken often messy relationship you can out silent treat them I'm not saying that this is healthy I think the healthiest path is to communicate in a healthy way but since they're likely not going to ascribe to that you can also show yourself the respect and say I'm certainly not going to blame myself for this and say that to yourself internally you don't need to say it to them and then learn to peaceably exist with them in fact I would say you could pretend that if your narcissistic partner or family member is giving you the silent treatment pretend you're at a silent Meditation Retreat and try to make the most of it I don't mean to make light of it but the fact is the reason narcissists get away with the silent treatment is because it often and we often enable it because we give them the results we want we apologize take the blame take the responsibility do anything we can to start the conversation again because it's so tense you can stick this out but most importantly view the silent treatment as the red flag that it is it is a very unhealthy relationship Dynamic and when it happens the one thing that you should be hearing loudly in the midst of all this silence is that you're looking at one very big red flag I hope that clarified some of the issues around the silent treatment and I know those of you suffering with it while this may not change it I hope you understand where it come comes from some ways to cope with it and different ways it can manifest so let's talk a little bit about stonewalling sort of is like it sounds but it's not just simply about stone walls this term is actually part of something we're actually going to be taking on in a future video but it was an idea submitted by more than a few subscribers to this Channel and when I thought about their suggestion I agree the term stonewalling does actually capture a key term that's important to understand and narcissistic and high conflict relationships I'm Walling is a refusal to participate in communication or Connection in a relationship in its simplest form it may be the silent treatment stonewalling the term actually takes in a lot of territory and it represents things and feelings that it brings up are things like abandonment and a refusal to participate in the relationship especially when the stonewaller isn't happy with us with what's going on now the most classical presentation of stonewalling is in fact the silent treatment when you talk to a person and they literally do not respond you're talking to them and they do not respond that's the silent treatment stonewalling though can take other forms it can manifest as a person who walks away when you are talking or somebody who does not respond to a message an email or a call repeatedly especially when it happens because they do not want to respond to the conversation or the issue that's being discussed now stonewalling is not someone taking a moment before they respond it's not someone just simply holding back on responding because they need a moment so they don't react and so that they can provide a response that's you know that's not hurtful no no no that's not what stonewalling is stonewalling is unhealthy stonewalling occurs when a person does not want to deal with the issue being discussed in the relationship at that time that issue May for example be emotionally evocative it may also require a person having to take response disability whatever that is and it is something that's very uncomfortable the topic is something that's very uncomfortable for the stonewaller which is why they withhold communication communication and basically shut things down now stonewalling can also take the form of someone saying I'm not going to talk about that I refuse to talk about that and if you bring it up I am going to walk away so stop talking about it but it it's just it stops the conversation it effectively silences the other person or people in this exchange and it results over time and issues never being discussed or resolved as well as sort of this kind of sense of censorship in the relationship whereby a person may feel as though they are not permitted to bring up a topic for fear of shutting the whole thing down now keep in mind that in some cases through family therapy or couples therapy there may have actually been focused work to designate certain topics that are sort of off limits or topics that a family or couple may be asked to wait to discuss before therapy but that is something that is agreed upon by all the players as part of something that all of you are working on together and that's not something that just one person the stonewaller simply gets to mandate that nobody gets to be talked about so don't confuse those two issues sometimes it does come up in therapy in this case I'm talking about stonewalling unilaterally the stonewaller makes that judgment so why is the term stonewalling relevant to understanding narcissism it's because stonewalling is a technique that is quite often employed by narcissists because one of their core relational approaches as you guys already know is manipulation stonewalling is the ultimate form of manipulation it can often result in so much discomfort that the other person just relents they talk more they may shift the topic and try to coax The Narcissist to talk or come back and then before you know it the uncomfortable issue that was being discussed is no longer being talked about anymore and now the narcissist doesn't even have to think about taking responsibility because you're no longer talking about it the issue is definitely not resolved and the narcissist is off the hook how nice so narcissistic relationships can actually be particularly toxic for people who do struggle with any issues around abandonment now here's the thing all of us at some level struggle with abandonment to some degree nobody obviously who cares about someone wants to be abruptly cut off by them or left by them but if you do actually struggle with slightly deeper issues with abandonment stonewalling can feel particularly painful because even if a person doesn't storm out of a room but instead they just go silent that is in fact an abandonment and because of this stonewalling can be a particularly toxic dynamic because the fear of Abandonment or the fear of Silence can be so triggering that people just capitulate and give in to avoid it and over time a whole bunch of issues never get discussed and never get addressed now stonewalling is a powerful means by which a narcissist can exert a lot of control in a relationship I mean what they basically what stonewalling does for them is it raises fears of the things that you can't discuss in a relationship it raises issues of being shut down in a relationship of being left alone or having to sit in silence it can also create an environment where you feel like you have to adhere to The Narcissist agendas if you're going to keep the conversation going now stonewalling as the name implies means that a relationship gets stuck in essence it gets walled off there is no possibility for addressing relationship ruptures or even an opportunity to feel heard and in some ways in most ways that works really great for a narcissist because for them relationships are really just a source of Supply so now they don't have to deal with them because they Stonewall the idea of growing a relationship from a place of vulnerability and openness and Trust isn't on the radar for them anyhow so it's just easier I'm going to Stonewall as soon as this relationship becomes uncomfortable now many of you know stonewalling can occur in many narcissistic family systems as well most people from narcissistic family systems recognize the dynamic of a parent using the silent treatment to control the entire family Dynamic and this can also be a sibling or someone else in the family system who uses stonewalling once again the family will often end up trying to do whatever they can do to break the silent treatment or break just sort of their kind of dead stare so they can draw The Narcissist back out and once again using stonewalling the narcissist can control the entire family system now if you grew up with the silent treatment you recognize how abusive how invalidating and how confusing it can be and if you are a child it can be particularly unsettling because it really does feel like abandonment and since most children are hardwired to please their parents when a parent goes silent it can be so frustrating so saddening and frankly quite frightening for a child and the child will not only go to Great Strides to draw their parent back out out again they will do anything to avoid the stonewalling and if you experience this dynamic as a child then stonewalling when it happens in adulthood can be incredibly triggering now in family systems the silent treatment can feel almost capricious like you never know when it is going to happen or what sets it off so for example the thing that could set off stonewalling it could be what feels like an innocuous comment or a relatively small transgression like for example not being able to travel home for Thanksgiving one year because of a work conflict and then that's when it happens they Stonewall because the narcissistic personality tends to take everything so personally and sometimes years can go by with this silent treatment happening years can go by with the narcissist not talking to you or better yet there's a passive aggressive Twist on this they will try to speak through another family member for example Mary can you can you please tell your brother that I need a ride to the doctor when you the brother are sitting right there in front of them it can feel Petty it can feel childish and over time honestly it can feel really exhausting some people actually find themselves feeling quite guilty in the face of stonewalling in many ways they might literally take responsibility for this toxic pattern even though it's being done to them now stonewalling can also result in a lot of game playing in a relationship they may use sort of a partial silent treatment and say you know I could see us starting to talk to each other again if you could just figure out what you did to upset me that is such a mind f word that you get lost in the abyss of the stonewalling and now the need to mind read stonewalling definitely contributes to the eggshell Dynamic of these narcissistic and high conflict toxic relationships the fear of the stonewalling means that you may be very and take be very careful very almost very censored because you don't want to set off another multi-year cycle of silence or if watching your partner storm off into the night at its core like I noted there's a strongly passive aggressive element to stonewalling it is a cruel sort of acting out that is achieved by not actually actively doing something but by withholding something passive aggressive behavior by definition is really confusing because not only are you hurt by it but it takes a minute because it's not someone screaming in your face but rather it's about you being insulted through a back door the passive piece in this situation and stonewalling it's the withdrawal narcissus Stonewall for the same reason they do most things insecurity as well as their disdain and their contempt for intimacy and then throw into that their lack of empathy intimacy and sustained closeness really require compromise and even sacrifice in terms of sometimes having to take responsibility for uncomfortable things and talking about topics that may leave any of us feeling vulnerable it means putting in the work of having the difficult conversations if for no other reason than respect but since narcissistic relationships are definitely not characterized by respect that doesn't happen Intimacy in general in most cases by narcissus is a devalued and at best a very superficial state for narcissists and as a result stonewalling becomes a viable strategy for them why deal with the Deep stuff just walk out and go silent instead instead of having to do the real work and the narcissist takes the stance of who cares about how it leaves the other person feeling as long as I don't need to deal with stuff I don't need don't need and want to deal with now the marital researcher John gottman terms stonewalling as something he calls one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in essence these are these behaviors that happen in a relationship that are a foreshadowing of a relationship's ultimate downfall overall stonewalling is ridiculously Petty and it's an emotionally stunted manner of managing challenging topics or potential conflicts in a relationship so you may be wondering okay this happens to me how the heck am I supposed to deal with this you see it for what it is and most importantly you fight against your own triggers of Abandonment and pass stonewalling and you don't chase after them you take a long look at this Dynamic and reflect on whether you want to participate in it but since this is a narcissist there's no point in explaining this to them no point in saying that I'm on to you this is stonewalling there's no point in trying to teach them about the fact that stonewalling is unhealthy and it makes a relationship get stuck and sort of wither and that this entire cycle is abusive doing all of that is going to get you nowhere once the stonewalling dynamic is revealed you can certainly give it the old College try and attempt to address it in couples therapy or family therapy but I'm going to be honest with you if stonewalling is happening in a narcissistic context the odds of Shifting it are pretty close to zero but I do want to make a disclaimer because I see something that could end up being a little confusing some of you may be wondering if no contact qualifies as stonewalling no because stonewalling occurs within the framework of an ongoing relationship when no contact happens you are done and the relationship is behind you now you might be thinking of a gray rock isn't that kind of stonewalling in Gray Rock You are not stopping conversation with them you are simply and superficially answering questions trying to keep emotion out of it and you are not storming off so no while gray rock may feel sort of stone Wally it's really not stonewalling has been considered by some to be a form of gaslighting because it does doubt your reality and shape-shift your reality but ultimately it is a manipulation it is cruel and it is a favorite tool of narcissists who truly do leave the kitchen when they feel the heat and by the heat I mean that need for intimacy and that need for closeness stonewalling can definitely happen outside of narcissistic relationships and it is definitely a dynamic that once it happens in a relationship your relationship is probably on borrowed time if it happens in family relationships these are family relationships that often get stuck and can't grow but within a narcissistic relationship it is a common Dynamic and it is one that is almost impossible to address or change that it's left to you to figure out is this something I want to live with or is this something that is no longer working for me so let's take on word salad it's an interesting one if you've never heard of this one it's actually quite interesting this is a actually a video where I think I'm okay hold on to your hat because this is actually a hard example to come up with let's say that you are talking with a narcissistic partner about some Financial concerns that you were having the two of you don't typically communicate well and money's a little bit of a challenge your partner he's a gaslighter and he's often in denial about money he'll often deflect the conversations so he doesn't have to deal so okay you let's say you say this hey hon uh before you head out to the gym we just need to take a quick minute to talk about the household budget there's actually a tax bill that's coming due and I need to make sure that we have the money in the account set up right so I have the funds for it okay now let's just say they respond your narcissistic partner responds like this seriously seriously you're gonna bring this up now bring it up on my way while I'm on my way to something I want to do because I work so hard God you never think about my feelings you never think about what I need need you talk about love talk about hate and you talk about what you need I I need things too what about that family of yours what did they ever give you did they ever give us hmm I need a car I need a house I need things what about you what do you do for us I do so much and a nicer house would be better for us your family knows that and I work hard if you don't see that and I needed that I needed to be seen do you see what I need but you you just keep reaching for the Stars why can't you just stay here on the Earth why why why would you need so much more than I give I give you the Stars I give a lot I work hard don't you see that in school I was the very best student and then I was the very best worker and I just saw someone who said he owes his career to me I was just 22 and this guy this guy he was 45 this guy he says I was his mentor I was 22. he was 45. I do so much I give so much okay so imagine that that was the response two you're asking about the tax bill so in that perky jerky chaos of words and confusion and twists and turns I think if we did some decoding it seems like maybe this person's narcissistic partner feels unappreciated or maybe he was trying to say his partners and things thinks his partner's entitled or maybe maybe he thinks the partner's family could have helped out frankly the fact is who the hell knows what that whole loopy rant was about but if that happened to you at that point you are so confused that you may actually just let the conversation go maybe you'd risk asking about it later or better yet try and figure out this tax bill issue yourself that lovely interlude I tried to give you an example of was an example of the word salad word salad in the realm of narcissism is a confused jumbled up mix of words that don't really hang together fully logically or semantically and definitely aren't a sensible response to what a person says the sentences by themselves make sense like each of those sentences and I gave you in that example they're grammatically correct but all together they don't represent a meaningful response to the question or issue at hand and they leave the situation even more confused than it was before you spoke now this term word salad is actually used in Psychiatry and psychology in another way as well it's used when we refer to the verbal production of people who have certain mental illnesses or central nervous system illnesses like examples would be for example schizophrenia or other psychotic illnesses or other issues like dementia but in these cases sort of traditional psychiatric word salad it is almost random words it might be like car shop me war go try so Hop Shop chicken song so there's absolutely no sense no semantic meaning to the chain of words in that kind of word sound now obviously that kind of psychiatric word salad is something far more pathological and indicative of profound mental illness or potentially brain damage but in narcissism when we use this term word salad it's when we talk about these very confused verbal tirades and diatribes that just almost like literally almost like they don't make sense now word salad in narcissism definitely has certain characteristics it can be very circuitous a person just talking around in circles and never really getting to a point it can be tangential for example the narcissistic person bringing up topics and themes that have nothing to do with the issue that's being discussed so for example bringing up that idea in that in the word salad example I gave you bringing up that idea of being a mentor to some random person years ago had nothing to do with the tax bill it's confusing when it's tangential because it's not a response to the issue at hand it's it is also word salad can be very deflecting because again it doesn't address the issue at hand and deflection in fact is a sort of a form of gaslighting word salad can also some some people what we call persecutory meaning that it has an almost conspiratorial almost paranoid twist to it a person going on about their victimhood or the fact that you don't get them and nobody gets them the persecutory piece is not required but it's not an unusual part of these narcissistic word salads now in a way word salad as I suggested is really a form of gaslighting now while it the word salad doesn't deny your reality per se though it may depend on what kinds of words the salad is made of it is designed to confuse now one may Wonder now one may wonder why does this even happen my hypothesis for why narcissists engage in Word cell is that it's due to a combination of Rage dysregulation their tendency to not deal well with reality when they don't want to deal with it and an inability to manage their inability to manage frustration all of that together may result in these bizarre verbal hiccups and over time when they are cornered they have learned I guess that just yammering on in a twisty Charney way may actually get people off of their backs because there are likely any number of Origins for why a narcissistic individual would engage in word salad it may also relate to the idea that different wood solids may look different a rageful word salad will be loud and angry and entitled word salad will be victimized a grandiose or arrogant word salad will sound like a flight of fancy so when in the midst of all those confused words the only thing you will really hear is all of their narcissistic stuff just spewing out so what do you do the first time you encounter word salad I promise you you're going to be really confused you may even wonder early on if they're on drugs the second time it happens please view it as a wake-up call word salad like any salad is a mishmash of ingredients gaslighting false narratives and so on and so forth and your reactions may also be a mishmash of confusion fear anxiety and frustration narcissistic relationships are seductive because there's always something to do in a narcissistic relationship always a bizarre message to decode because they said something that's strange or always something to explain always something to defend against or there's always that Rubik's Cube you are always trying to figure out what you need to do to win them over but these relationships are actually broken Rubik's Cubes that are set up in a way that you can never quite solve them word salad becomes one more time in this relationship when you are trying to figure them out but there actually isn't that much to figure out we've already nailed it they're insecure they're conflictual they're antagonistic they can't cope they can't take responsibility they lash out with other people and that's about it it's one more example word salad is one more example of the chaos that's inherent in these relationships basically narcissists just make messes and leave other people to sort them out trying to find a Rosetta Stone to decode their word salad is not only a waste of your time it simply sucks you deeper into the narcissist's Vortex if you have never encountered narcissistic word salad I guess just considering yourself fortunate in my experience I have observed it happening a little bit more with covert narcissists who tend to get a bit more emotionally overwhelmed they tend to be more socially anxious and they tend to get more confused but I'll be honest with you the grandiose narcissist who isn't getting his or her way or is going through some big disappointment is also quite vulnerable when word salad happens and you witness it it helps to know that it's coming and then when it happens you can almost smile to yourself like you knew it was coming no matter what the dressing is word salad really feels good and I can promise you it never tastes good and in some ways word salad is simply the encapsulation of a narcissistic temper tantrum and their gaslighting version of sort of speaking in narcissistic tongues all I can say about word salad is if you encounter it good luck to you I hope this video clarified word salad in a way that wasn't too word salary and it actually made sense again good luck to you if you encounter it so let's go to it let's talk about ghosting so what do you what do you do when a person just disappears just done and then nothing you get blocked from all platforms emails don't get returned calls just ring they don't even go to voicemail and these days since very few people have landlines and that's not really an option anyhow so there's a person in your life then boom they're gone so when a person just disappears and does not respond that's a phenomenon that's been called ghosting and while we are talking about it and how it happens in a more technologically mediated era when a person just doesn't let you in or doesn't respond on the numerous platforms you've got social media and everything this concept of ghosting has been around since people could be in touch a whole stack of your letters not getting answered ghosting is the sudden and abrupt disappearance of a person from your life with little or no warning so how you're wondering is this term ghosting really relevant to a narcissism dictionary because it's something that narcissists actually kind of like doing now this is the one term we're going to be talking about that doesn't entirely and solely live in the narcissism space ghosting takes in a lot more territory and in some cases and we'll talk about that it isn't always completely pathological ghosting feels bad because it's so sudden and it's so abrupt there's not a real Prelude to it it's not somebody's like hey I'm not feeling this this isn't working out and maybe it would just be better for me if we weren't in touch anymore you don't get that kind of build up so when they do disappear you're not as surprised in fact they may even future fake you and say hey I'll see you again sometime and then poof they disappear that makes it even sort of more crazy making now narcissists do tend to be more cowardly by Design they find it hard to communicate clearly and when the pressure is on and they don't want to experience any strong emotion or anything negative from another person they just disappear so instead of just taking responsibility or considering how it might feel for somebody else if they were just to disappear without any notice they don't think about it obviously their lack of empathy makes it easy because they only account for their own discomfort they don't want to deal with you so there are lots of reasons though they may ghost a narcissist May ghost because they've been dating multiple people and they chose the other people they may do it because they're bored they may feel like their relationship with you is too demanding they may not like you or you may not be bringing them the narcissistic Supply the way they want you to bring it now no matter what obviously it feels terrible for some people they may literally experience it as an outright abandonment and as a result being ghosted can sort of evoke feelings of Panic or betrayal for the rest of us who may not struggle as much with abandonment it's just plain unsettling and there's lots of rumination and wondering did we say something did we do something like what just happened but we must remember that in general ghosting is not healthy now it's very important that you don't confuse ghosting with something like no contact no contact typically comes after many many conversations about things not working out about multiple ways of trying to make this relationship work I mean it's usually after a very long period and it can come after something that feels like a breakup conversation the other person even if they had half a brain would know that you were discontent by definition though ghosting happens out of the blue you may even have a nice time with someone and they'll even say they might want to see you again and then boom they disappear and in that way it's why it is so unsettling and why it feels so cowardly even a text or a message saying hey this wasn't working out for me please don't ask me to explain and yeah goodbye it means that at least you know the person is gone it may still may not feel good but to have a person just go away that really literally doesn't make sense to us now ghosting sadly can bring out the worst in its victims I have heard numerous stories of people using false number phone numbers that can easily be created to lure the ghoster out of their ghosting here's the thing it's really not a worthwhile strategy the ghoster is clearly completely not that healthy the ghoster is not likely to apologize or take responsibility for the behavior and now you look a little like a low-level stalker and that's never a good look it is completely understandable why you or anyone would feel compelled to reach out just to make sense of what just happened but in the end the most circumspect position to take is to recognize that you probably dodged a bullet and sometimes in life we don't get to know why something happened now ghosting frankly is lazy and narcissists do tend to be quite lazy in their relationships it's also a bit cowardly which also fits the narcissistic mold now most of the time narcissistic ghosters will not come back and Hoover now it certainly certainly can happen but the ghosters do tend to be the ones with the avoidant attachment style so they're the ones who leave the kitchen as soon as the heat comes on and then they tend not to come back into the kitchen again now can a family member ghost absolutely it 'd be more strange but if all of a sudden a family member you have contact with becomes invisible it may not feel as ghosty because you can find them through other family members who probably still have contact with them but they may make it known that they want nothing to do with you and that that person's not to give you any information but ghosting is really largely in a close relationship phenomenon and it's typically something that happens relatively early in a relationship before you get to meet other people close to the ghoster so it becomes harder to find them there tends to be more accountability with more time now there are plenty of people out there who ghost but who are not narcissistic and I know you guys are wondering about that they may be people who are just simply not good at communication people who are racked with guilt at the idea of having to break up with someone people who really hate conflict and people who are in fact a little bit cowardly so it may not be narcissism per se but maybe more of an avoidant or guilt-driven relationship style if other elements of a person are present such as empathy reciprocity and compassion ghosting May really just be an example of poor manners in the modern era some people may even argue that ghosting someone before date number three isn't even really ghosting and then you get a free pass to evaporate in the very early days of a relationship but after some point maybe after day three ghosting is really just bad relationship hygiene now narcissistic ghosting can have a very different feel these are relationships that are typically not so love mommy but instead these are the relationships that are a little bit more slippery the dates may be pleasant enough but even after the dates it can be difficult to get in touch with them they don't get in touch with you or hard to even create a follow-up with them you may cut their slipperiness some slack and say ah they're just really busy and just write it off to their being busy but when they finally do ghost you then it's not shocking but it still doesn't feel good now Justin aside keep this in mind sometimes people ghost for reasons of safety and I understand that they get an uncomfortable feeling they aren't that deep into the relationship and they just don't want to interact with the person anymore now again what I'm about to say is subjective and completely unscientific but in early days ending an abundance of caution if you step away quietly and disappear to avoid something a relationship situation that seems to be getting a little bit sinister that to me doesn't even qualify as anything like pathological ghosting that's really just sort of saving yourself now in the grand scheme of things those of you who get ghosted by a narcissist consider yourself lucky you got out or you were let go before the wounds cut too deep or before you made too much of an investment it would be a long period of hide and seek that you would have spent in this relationship now ghosting is obviously far better than the horrible cycles of idealization devaluation and discarding nonetheless it doesn't feel good it can trigger Old Wounds around abandonment and insecurities and feelings of not being enough that's work you can do for yourself on your own and not in the relationship far better that your ghoster waft Into the Night then you spend months and years being haunted by them what I was putting together the glossary series I was really like I really went through everything I could find blogs and what people have written and even books about narcissism to come up with all the terms I was actually quite surprised when ghosting came up as a term in the narcissistic abuse sphere because like I said ghosting is complex some of you may be watching this and saying shoot I ghosted am I a narcissist like I said pay attention if you've got empathy and compassion it's quite possible you ghosted someone because you really didn't want to hurt their feelings because you really aren't good at conflict and in fact if anything it was your empathy it is your empathy that makes things rather tricky for you so pay attention to that that you your reasons for sort of ghosting someone or walking out from someone early in a relationship without maybe explaining yourself may not qualify at all as what I'm calling here narcissistic ghosting in the ghosting relationship again to review that when it's with a narcissist even the early days of dating with them are very hide and seeking they're very inconsistent these aren't your very intense love bombing narcissists these aren't you're texting 50 times a day narcissists these are already the ones that are a little bit harder to pin down and you start to wonder like what is the role you're playing in this person's life and they literally it might even future fake right from the jump hey yeah I look forward to taking you to this concert down the road or I look forward to having you come to this you know place I love to go that's you know like a three hour drive away like they're actually throwing these plans at you for the future and that's all often how narcissistic ghosting ghosting works even in the early days of the relationship and even though they're not consistent in how they communicate they do make these future promises so when they really do just evaporate for that reason narcissistic ghosting can be uncomfortable because you were sort of settling into this idea well this person must be interested they keep talking about these things we're going to do you start to recognize that they're actually using future faking in that case as almost a love-bombing strategy and then the ghosting as a very convenient to exit I hope this gives some clarification on the complexities of this term ghosting both the narcissistic version the non-narcissistic version and even the version that sometimes people use to protect themselves obviously if your instincts tell you I need to get out and I don't want this person to be able to find me I don't even want to explain this or have contact with them it's early enough get out and always safety safety safety first that is one of the main canons of understanding narcissistic relationships thanks again for tuning in as always please hit the Bell subscribe to this channel if you want more if you want more content on narcissism and narcissistic relationship and also those of you watching this series one wonderful set of emails and messages we're getting is people who have ideas for others things that should go in the series right now it's a 21 day series and the nice thing is the daily surprise you get from each video as it comes out like oh I emailed Dr Romney and I told her to do a video on such and such and here it comes so it's very likely that the ideas you come up with might be days 22 23 and 24 absolutely open to them these were the terms that came up to me but I'd love to make this something that's Dynamic and responsive to what everybody needs thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 225,143

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Id: -1rkqA3iA4U

Length: 57min 49sec (3469 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 23 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/Born-Value-779]

Doctor, I have learned so much from you and Medcircle. I'm borderline diagnosed and I am afraid I have traits. These videos educated me about cluster b and I've done allot of research on body language and the like to better understand others and have better interpersonal relationships. It's scary but I'm glad for what you said before, we are the ones hurting so he l badly we go for help.

I'm medicated, in DBT and sober. I'm trying. I didn't know what to do to try before, but betterhelp put me with my therapy soulmate and I'm making slow progress.

I cry so often it's overwhelming to others. Dive effect right. Facts over feelings. No more apologizing for like breathing, I don't lov3 myself much but I'm attempting to self care as much as I can.

I just want you to personally know, FUCKING THANK YOU! YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL AND WONDERFUL AND I LOVE YOU. 😘