5 Narcissism Code Words You NEED TO KNOW

we may actually get more sympathy and even empathy if we describe a person in our lives as difficult more so than if we describe them as narcissistic if we called a person in our life narcissistic we may end up getting lost in the criticism someone has for us for using a word we shouldn't be using and subsequently getting no support it's always fascinating to me how often journalists media types commentators HR folks professionals try to say the word narcissist to describe someone without saying it it becomes important to understand the language that people use the word is so tricky and my guess is that for risk management reasons people who are like editors and other Gatekeepers may tell their writers or commentators or whomever to not use it for fear of accusations around things like gold water rules and don't use clinical terminology and blah blah blah so people try to find their workaround words the challenges is that these workarounds often do not give a full enough picture or even portray these behavioral styles that are quite narcissistic as a problem that can really cause a lot of interpersonal harm and friction but rather these words often sort of paint narcissism as sort of a mystical foible or a stylistic issue or a quirk now in this series I will break down some of these terms so you can actually treat it as a red flag of sorts and tread very lightly so I bet some of you have encountered this have you ever had someone around you talking about a narcissistic person and they say ah don't say that like I just you know what they use say instead is they say no I think this is just their Shadow side or their dark side so that's how they'll describe the person and say I think this you were seeing their Shadow I think we're just seeing their dark side I guess the assumption is if there's a dark side or a shadow that's somewhere there must be a light side now the concept of the Shadow so it traditionally has jungian Origins as in Carl Jung and without giving you the long and dull lecture that I would typically give my undergraduates on this topic suffice it to say that in Jung's personality model the shadow is a part of the personality it's typically a hidden part of the personality riddled by guilt it has very Primal ancient almost species-specific Origins and that has both really evil parts to it and some normal elements to it the shadow takes in negative emotions that we don't want to express and so we squash them and then we resent that having to squash those interestingly Jung once wrote no tree it is said can grow to Heaven unless its roots reach down to Hell I suppose those hell roots are the shadow now in Carl Jung's model we all have a shadow and the repression of that shadow and the projection of it onto people and situations is really what the issue is and in simplest terms in order to get kind of cool and psychologically comfortable with our shadow requires us to see ourselves holistically jungian analytic models and therapies explore this and for those of you who really want to do the Deep dive into jungian Concepts in the shadow there are lots of wonderful books out there on this model and really describing the shadow now when you really really do the Deep dive and really read Jung's model it is worth noting that the shadow can really seem like a dark sort of shame-filled projection oriented personality Style that when you really read between the lines yeah sure it feels like it's congruent with narcissism but here's the thing most people out there talking about shadows and dark sides are not jungian analysts they may have read a Blog someone wrote or maybe just some quick little something or other but the tendency is to talk about narcissism as the darkness or the shadow that lurks in all of us so then the enabling finish on all of that is that well if all of us have a shadow then we need to learn to become more accepting of it and this is where it becomes a problem I am not a jungian analyst I was not trained in this model well I just did the reading I I've done and I can see how it may be the case that this Shadow idea would be put out there as a way to frame narcissism not as narcissism but when lack of empathy entitlement grandiosity arrogance control contempt invalidation manipulation and rage are all neatly packaged into the idea of a person living in their Shadow Self well unless that so-called Shadow is lying on an analyst couch three times a week and really doing the psychological work it actually feels more to me like a very tidy way to not take on the real toxicity harm damage and hurt raised by this personality style and simplify it to be some ephemeral interesting intellectual idea the people having to deal with this Shadow Self in their lives may feel a little Solace but also may feel that well Jung says we all have shadows so maybe I have no right to be mad and hurt for the verbal abuse since I now that means I have a dark side too in fact narcissistic people often try to soften their bad behavior by saying well I think we both behaved badly it's not a zero-sum game they behaved in an awful abusive way and the other person on the in this interaction might have been a little less than graceful no we didn't both behave badly in essence what the narcissistic person is trying to do is swallow you up into their Shadow don't walk into the darkness walk into the light now calling it a dark side or a Shadow Self also in a sort of Twisted way kind of romanticizes all of this too a sort of brooding bad but yet alluring person who has that mysterious dark side and for every person out there who had the bad boy bad girl bad person predilection wanted that sort of bad person to date this concept can sometimes take narcissism into a territory that almost fetishizes it and makes it kind of seductive and dangerous instead of something that is actually frankly mentally unhealthy for everyone involved so when I hear people tell me the narcissists themselves or people who are close to them about their dark sides and their Shadow selves I'm sort of struck by the rather slick branding trying to humanize behavior that is anything but so keep in mind what the series is about it's the words people say instead of using the word narcissism so when you hear someone talking about what they're going through in a relationship or they're getting treated really badly in a relationship and they're not getting out people say well you know I know it's their Shadow that's coming out well let me tell you that shadow is going to make them miserable and you'll see the longer you stay in that relationship the more the shadow moves all of its boxes into the house so let's go to it hurt people hurt people have you heard this I can pretty much bet my bottom dollar you have it's even like a this hurt people hurt people think has even shown up shown up as like a sitcom Trope most recently I actually saw them talking about I think of Arrested Development so people talk about this right now is there a little truth to this statement that hurt people hurt people sure absolutely we are at our worst when we are hurt and it is often when we say the worst things to other people however this phrase hurt people hurt people it's also a way people try to talk about narcissistic behavior without uttering the ugly word narcissism this phrase releases people from their bad behavior and it becomes about a rationalization for their bad behavior after all hurt people hurt people they were hurt so that's why they hurt see now this phrase isn't entirely wrong but it isn't entirely right lots of hurt people don't hurt people and even when hurt people do hurt people most of them rather quickly make amends so while I understand that being a hurt person may be a risk factor for unempathic boorish entitled dismissive invalidating harsh abusive Behavior let's start with this first not all people who engage in this Behavior has awful Behavior have a track record of really bad hurt and secondly many people most people with the history of being hurt do not hurt other people and they are aware often too aware of being empathic and mindful so they don't hurt people so when we see or witness or read about someone behaving really really bad badly and narcissistically and hurtfully it can be tempting to fall into talking about the whole hurt people hurt people Trope rather than focusing on the unacceptable nature of the behavior because that is what it is about the unacceptable nature of the behavior and the need for it to be changed or the need for consequences to the behavior rather than justifications and narratives around this idea that hurt people hurt people this manner of conceptualizing narcissistic behavior is something that unfortunately the Therapeutic Community has been quite guilty of for example a client perhaps a client going through narcissistic abuse may come into therapy and share stories of being gaslighted and invalidated and devalued and just generally narcissistically abused and some therapists and coaches make contextualize the bad behavior of the abuser from uh hurt people hurt people framework I hear you're hurt and perhaps the therapist is I hear you're hurt and perhaps they are lashing it out at you because they are hurt [Music] that doesn't take away the sting of the hurt for the person who's being invalidated and abused and may even leave the Survivor of the hurt doubting or judging themselves for not making enough allowances for the abusers hurt and this can then leave somebody just getting stuck in the cycles of self-blame and self-gaslighting we are living in an era of tremendous entitlement in civility anger frustration and rage I don't know that all of these people behaving in these ways are narcissistic but all of this behavior is toxic the prevailing wisdom is that all of these angry people are hurt people I doubt it I think some are just world-class a-holes selfish privileged and I sure as hell don't buy the hurt people hurt people Trope for the mess that the world is in right now when we see a person behave badly and consistently badly over time consistently entitled arrogant unempathic rude dismissive rageful we want to understand why instead of the Damned why we need to focus on the what and the what is their behavior when we get caught in these little explanations like hurt people hurt people instead of really focusing on the idea that narcissistic toxic and antagonistic behavior is bad for other people that this kind of behavior is not amenable to that much change and that most hurt people don't behave this way then we miss the moment to come up with better strategies to manage these situations instead of making all this sort of a ideological cop-out a cop-out based on where all of this comes from maybe we can talk about the harm that this Behavior does to people and regard it as such but for reasons that still kind of remain a mystery to me other than maybe the badly behaved powerful people are able to maintain the status quo on bad behavior because they get to make the rules our unwillingness to call these toxic patterns out again it remains a mystery why do we keep making excuses for narcissistic behavior what's interesting about narcissism is that a lot of people with this personality style actually are hurt they were hurt as children and they're reacting and tantruming as adults in light of that history of hurt that they've experienced but as I said most hurt people don't hurt people or if they do they quickly and meaningfully attempt to make amends by talking about narcissism from this hurt people hurt people framework we are in essence giving permission to this behavior and do not create any kind of space where this can change as a therapist who works with clients I see the hurt and I I'm by clients I mean narcissistic clients but I see they're hurt I empathize with their hurt and I call them out on their invalidating treatment of other people sometimes they drop out of therapy sometimes they hear it we are a bit obsessive in our Zeal to understand why people behave badly or narcissistically listen I'm guilty of it myself I made a damn career out of it of trying to understand narcissism but that was all until I got a lot more interested in how badly behaved and narcissistic people harm other people I got interested in what happens to those people who are harmed by these narcissistic patterns and ways to help them find their voices and spend instead of spending all of our time trying to rationalize and understand the bad toxic and antagonistic behavior of the hurt people who hurt people pay attention the next time someone says this someone says this to you who says hurt people hurt people the odds are that they may very well be trying to find a softer way to talk about narcissism but maybe we shouldn't be trying to find softer ways to talk about something that harms so many people in so many ways and in a really hard way I'm guilty of this one repeatedly so I'm going to come clean on why I do it but I'm going to be frank with you even as I was thinking about this idea of this video I also see the harm it may do when I use this word I get a lot of for talking about narcissism people in the mental health World often feel like I shouldn't be tossing that word about so easily that I need to be much more understanding about the origins of narcissism and to try to understand people with narcissistic personalities and to support them and to not demonize people with these patterns after all what people tell me is oh they don't mean to abuse people I take umbrage with that after I've been abused by someone I'll be frank it doesn't matter to me if they meant to they did it why should the person on the receiving end be the one to have to make all the allowances for someone else's abuse but I hear the criticisms and I'm I'm honoring them and I'll go to the end of my day saying narcissism is not a clinical term and I'll go on blah blah blah it's a descriptive term whatever but to make some of my lectures more palatable for business audiences HR audiences academic types and even mental health types I will fall into calling people with narcissistic personalities as having difficult personalities or difficult people it's true they're difficult but the word difficult carries no clinical implications so it sort of brings down the hackles of the audience that get raised whenever I say the word narcissist I'm a coward for doing that I know but that's why I want to make this video to make this concept more clear but again I own up to my cowardice on this one the challenge is that we all have different definitions of the word difficult difficult maybe someone who has very different opinions than us difficult maybe someone who has I don't know really restrictive food preferences difficult maybe someone who has really odd sleeping preferences and will not budge on them difficult maybe someone who insists on a very specific feather pillow and will not sleep without that pillow difficult maybe someone who is very rigid and it's either their way or the highway difficult maybe somebody who has a short fuse so when you or I say someone is difficult I don't know if that's someone who will only eat pepperoni pizza or if that's someone who's verbally abusive that's a lot of territory the word is so subjective and while most people would generally agree that someone who is egocentric and lacks empathy and is entitled and passive aggressive and victimized and rageful is difficult depending on how well you know the person and the nature of your relationship with the person Etc there are people out there who may disagree with you that the narcissistic person in your life is difficult so again it's very very subjective this word but in the majority of cases once a person gets to know a narcissistic person there is some degree of agreement that the narcissistic person that most narcissistic people are difficult but unlike the word narcissism which has a very clear definition which all of you should know by Heart by now it makes it a bit more conversational and the word difficult almost implies an annoying little foible like snoring instead of something that's a lot more psychologically treacherous for your health difficult is one of those words that allows us to talk about a narcissistic person in more mixed company I'm sort of like this hey do you like your new boss let's say you're talking to someone you don't know really well like for example a relatively new acquaintance that works in your industry to this new person you may be more likely to say if they ask you that question yeah yeah it's okay but my new boss I don't know she's a little difficult the other person will interpret that interpret that as they will but it would feel very different than if that person asked you that question do you like your new boss then saying your new boss feels like they're a narcissist that might leave someone saying whoa that's a lot or what if someone came up to you say hey what do you think of my sister's new partner you guys was a bunch of you were spending time together you're like yeah yeah well I met them a few times I really like your sister a lot her partner a little bit difficult instead of saying hey I think your sister's partners are raging narcissist somehow saying they're difficult lets the conversation keep going we may actually get more sympathy and even empathy if we describe a person in our lives as difficult more so than if we describe them as narcissistic if we called a person in our life narcissistic we may end up getting lost in the criticism someone has for us for using a word we shouldn't be using and subsequently getting no support if we say that the person is difficult somehow that becomes a little more relatable it's not to say it's not to say that enablers won't enable they will but they may be more willing to hear more about a difficult person than a narcissistic person how to make the rules but this is how it is let's face it lots of things in life can be difficult puzzles can be difficult a drive in your car can be difficult a recipe can be difficult a test can be difficult a job can be difficult this word difficult is a part of our lives and our vocabularies so it threatens us less but as I said it doesn't really tell us much this word difficult other then we are challenged by a situation and a narcissistic person in our lives let's face it they're more than a challenge they're just simply not good for us we wouldn't say that a puzzle or a drive or a recipe or a job are narcissistic that doesn't make sense so the generalized quality of the word difficult makes it more usable but it also misses something if you complain too much about someone who is difficult it may be viewed as you not being up to the challenge of the difficult person as though they are a test or a puzzle which really misses the unhealthy impact that narcissistic people and relationships have on us as I said I use the word difficult when I'm trying to sort of talk about narcissism in a way that I'm trying to dodge the folks out there that are quick to call me out for being mean to the narcissist and I again I get that criticism on The Daily every day people think why are you so mean to narcissistic people Dr Romney I actually really am not I'm the first one to say I know that they've been through something it is in fact quite hard to be them I am just saying that you dear viewer do not need to sacrifice your life to please them as it's not possible to please them and that they can and they should do to the work to address these patterns they just don't do the work I strongly believe in treating a person regardless of their personality with empathy but you have to train yourself to not expect it back it's that distance model right I can interact with the narcissist but just with really really tall thick and impenetrable boundaries throw the word difficult in there but keep in mind to use this word sometimes Mrs the whole picture and when we use it can make it seem like it's more benign of a situation than it really is and when people then make a bigger decision like ending a very very long marriage or a marriage where there's children or leaving a long-term career and they're leaving it on the basis of it being difficult many times people will say well that seems like a dramatic reaction it's not really the depth of the narcissism may be such that it leaves us wondering why the heck didn't you do this sooner but when we call it difficult it can really leave people doubting themselves I hope that helps you understand this word difficult again guilty as charged is a way we find to talk about narcissism without saying it from here going forward recognize that it's a code way that I'm talking about narcissism but do it when I'm in more mixed audiences and this is one that comes up a lot instead of saying somebody's narcissistic or difficult or toxic they'll simply say that they are wounded by understanding the ways people sort of do this semantic Fandango to avoid saying the word narcissistic it's important to understand that that's what they're doing because to just say someone's wounded means you're going to miss a lot of the picture now each of the elements in this series the ways that people try to talk about narcissism without saying it all of these terms that people use all hold a piece of the truth it's like The Five Blind Men in the elephant they all touch the elephant and one thinks they're feeling a snake one thinks they're feeling a fan one thinks they're feeling a wall and then they start to fight about what it really is none of them were right but each of their subjective experiences wasn't wrong well when we try to talk about narcissism in these sort of compartmentalized ways not exactly wrong these things are true about this particular personality style but they miss a far more important bigger picture I don't disagree narcissistic people are quite wounded in most cases in many cases they may have experienced attachment disruptions or wounds invalidation inconsistency chaos they were never taught how to soothe themselves or regulate themselves they may have experienced trauma or abuse or they may be modeling the bad parental behavior that they witnessed and this lack of life lessons combined with the developmental disruptions that often characterize the narcissistic person's early life they definitely wounded them and so when a narcissistic person lashes out at people or they become rageful or they are very manipulative or they make the conversation about them or they're very callous or they lie or they're cheating or whatever people will say yeah their behavior is bad but they're so wounded or they'll say and they're so wounded here is where it gets really tricky because the majority if not all narcissistic abuse survivors are wounded as well either recently in the current relationship or these are Old Wounds that date from Back in childhood and the real problem is that the people who have experienced narcissistic abuse will blame themselves for their own wounds and most people who've experienced narcissistic abuse will not use their own wounds as an excuse for bad behavior but the tendency to portray the narcissistic person as a wounded person is often done in a vacuum and does not integrate seeing them as people who are also harming other people through their manipulation invalidation gaslighting lack of empathy callousness arrogance control and neglect people tend to just focus on the wounded part with maybe the silent belief that if the wound could just be addressed then the bad behavior will cease it's definitely not that easy when the terminology wounded is used to describe a person who is evidencing narcissistic behavior survivors tend to immediately fall back into their usual cognitively dissonant trauma-bonded space they will feel guilty for wanting to call the narcissistic people in their lives out they will feel ugh I am not a nice person because this person was wounded and here I am calling them narcissistic and toxic and difficult I got I'm a terrible person the problem is as with most narcissistic relationship is that this is not a two-way street the narcissistic person will not look at the person on the receiving end of their abuse and frame it as oh goodness this person I'm raging at is wounded I should stop no that that's not going to happen most allowances that happen in any narcissistic relationship tend to be one way in many of the clinical writings about narcissism while obviously they use the word narcissism they will regularly come back to this sort of idea of the Wounded person framework which isn't wrong it's not wrong but it almost never accounts for the harm that comes to other people as a result of Personality style we only tell the story of the abuser's woundedness but never never that of the people on the receiving end of it now whether it's a big news story about a world-class or famous abuser that a journalist will then write about as being wounded or a couple's therapist who may frame the narcissistic Partners Behavior as due to the partners being wounded it moves the spotlight away from the patterns that are causing so much trouble for the people in this situation and the World At Large it makes us it makes it all a story of victimhood and unfairness and cruelty which then allows the narcissistic person especially the vulnerable narcissistic person to continue to hide behind their model their mantle I should say of victimhood and play into the wounded description with far less accountability it also Fosters the blame shifting that narcissistic people are so good at placing blame on other people or situations and making it about their wounds this blame shifting gamesmanship that is such a part of narcissistic relationships can get fueled by this idea of them being portrayed as wounded and then it's interesting these big actually Industries have sprung up around helping the narcissistic folks heal from their wounds but it mostly consists of them Shifting the blame for every bad thing that they have ever done onto the people who they feel wounded them it doesn't really move the needle and as we know even with access to the very best treatment when a narcissist is under conditions of stress or frustration or disappointment the abusive patterns inherent in narcissism will surface again yes most narcissistic people are wounded but that is a story of origin not the description of what is happening now in their relationships knowing the why I suppose it is interesting but it is not useful to the people who are experiencing a narcissistic relationship now and if anything just subsuming narcissism simply as a person being wounded only further Fosters cognitive dissonance and self-blame in a person who's experienced the narcissist's abuse and misses the larger picture of this personality it also casts too big a nap there are lots of wounded people out there who actually conduct themselves as compassionate kind respectful present and good people who are often too empathic quite frankly and become classical targets for narcissistic people so it's a non-specific way to describe something that doesn't actually describe the phenomenon of being around someone with a difficult antagonistic or narcissistic personality now I'm a big fan of empathy being I think it's such a powerful force in our world that we're no longer harnessing enough being empathic towards someone who is narcissistic doesn't mean that you hang out for more abuse and it doesn't mean that you enable it means that you do not need to be vindictive or cruel it means that you can set a quiet boundary disengage and recognize your limitations I'm not saying it's going to be easy but you can do it sadly it doesn't mean that their cruel Behavior will change their wounds are theirs it's not your responsibility to fix them and you being their psychological punching bag is not going to be what makes them better it will definitely make you worse and as much as it may release tension for the narcissistic person in the short term it's not doing anyone any favors so while it's tempting for people to kind of do that work around and say oh yes this was just a really wounded person to call it that is really describing a tree by talking about its roots let's focus on what it is we can see and how it affects all of us so let me try this one on you have you ever had anyone say this to you about a narcissist oh come on now don't take it so seriously that's just so misunderstood remember this enabler series is to help you understand the toxic thing in a things enablers say which can often do more harm so let's go back to this they are so misunderstood well frankly that enabling statement is my motivation behind this YouTube channel to help you understand them but probably not in the way that the enablers intend for you to to understand them I guess the enablers toss this phrase out as a way I guess to generate empathy for the narcissistic folks if you just took the time to get to know them to understand them then everything would be okay and as always these enably statements allow the enabler's Illusions and at times delusions to remain alive and well this is also a common refrain in the area of Mental Health as part of my work I spend my downtime schedule time work time you name it studying narcissistic personality and the prevailing wisdom in this literature is you just need to understand it these folks are misunderstood and then you can get through to them I can say pretty confidently no you can't but when people hear this oh come on now okay yeah I know this person's screaming at you or raging at you or I know this person seems vindictive and cruel but you know what I actually just think they're really misunderstood when an enabler says that what it does is it puts the onus on the person who is already enduring narcissistic abuse and in essence is chiding that person for not understanding their abuser it's actually quite grotesque and because many survivors of narcissistic abuse are actually quite empathic too many of them are just almost too empathic very accommodating they will immediately go to that cognitively dissonant place of oh no maybe I didn't try hard enough to understand them maybe this is my fault oh I'm not that understanding this rhetoric this enabling rhetoric often comes unfortunately from therapists and coaches and other people who for any number of reasons may be weighing in on it on a relationship situation they may say things like well it sounds like with this person it sounds like their anger is coming from a deeper place maybe they're just really misunderstood now after reading all the stuff that I've read on narcissism trust me I understand I understand this personality style and the point of this YouTube channel as I said is to pay it forward and helped you understand for many of you who have been subscribers and long time viewers on this channel if I gave you an exam right now I think most of you would actually be able to give me a very good dissertation on narcissism that hits all of the high points so unless you are brand new to this Channel and if you are welcome the rest of you you get it and you yourselves also understand that sometimes the narcissistic folks yeah they do have tough backstories and you find yourself caught in confusion and dissonance and justification so no they are not misunderstood in fact I do believe narcissistic folks are people with these high conflict personalities are actually the group of people that most of us have put the most time into understanding so we understand them really well probably already wasting too much of our brain space on understanding them armed with that understanding knowing or what we know about them we walk on eggshells we hold back on sharing feelings we don't share the good stuff we don't share the bad stuff we don't defend we don't engage we don't explain we don't personalize and on top of that we are empathic with their oh so difficult backstories and we try to complement them and fluff them and try to help them feel safe and try to do damage control when they behave badly in public and yet after all of that they still rage at us if we do one thing and one thing only that they perceive as not meeting their needs perfectly they rage trust me they're not misunderstood understanding cannot be a one-way Street we may be able to understand these high conflict folks in our lives with the clarity of a scientist understanding a problem in a lab but alas the narcissistic folks out there have no interest in understanding us despite the enabler's Zeal and concern that the narcissistic people out there are so misunderstood despite all of our best efforts to try to understand them there is rarely any attempt for the narcissistic person to engage in understanding outside of them they just want the understanding to come to them really despite understanding them what the enablers are really asking for is come on now just let them get away with it it would so much easier if the enablers would just speak their truths basically their truth is now come on let's not make those narcissistic people accountable for their behavior let's just let them get away with it let's not hold them to a behavioral standard and lets all of us keep our childlike fantasies alive about life and love and stories of redemption I do agree that narcissism as a personality style has long been misunderstood people simplistically sort of viewing it as self-love and vanity and grandiosity and bragging and arrogance rather than a far deeper and more nuanced sense of inadequacy ego fragility dysregulation and incapacity for self-reflection that can result in Rage and harm to others listen narcissus had far bigger problems than just staring at himself so sure maybe maybe narcissistic folks are misunderstood but once you really understand it then honestly you may not want to engage any further anyhow and frankly the one group I am pretty confident may not actually understand it is the enablers just be sure you don't waste your time trying to explain it to them thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 240,807

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Id: bNDr6ChLhvk

Length: 42min 54sec (2574 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 18 2023