8 Questions A Narcissist Simply Cannot Answer

[Music] as you invest in your primary relationships there are certain basics that you want to maintain so that the relationship can have the deepest level of reward for you and it can be something that can actually bring out the very best in who you are and who those in front of you will want to be and among those healthy characteristics are things like openness curiosity mutual curiosity about one another a sense of accountability you know you want to have a sense of teamwork that says i want to share with you who i am i want to know who you are and so we can put our resources together and encourage each other and stimulate each other as the days and weeks and months and years go by that's how healthy relationships work now let's let's throw the narcissist into the mix and then well here comes the one that's going to gunk up all those good uh kind of ingredients narcissists don't want to have this sense of teamwork they want you to be on their team but what that means to them is they want you to be subordinate to them and so narcissists carefully construct their own narrative where they're the hero they're the winner they're the one that knows the best and so you don't get honesty from them they they don't want you to to think that they're part of the group they have to be a little bit above the rest of the group so self-revelation is not something they're comfortable with at all they're very calculated they're always going for an angle so that said there are certain things that you will not access inside that person and i've constructed here eight character eight questions that a narcissist simply cannot answer because it would require them to have a sense of honesty that just doesn't exist on the inside so i'm going to go through these eight questions and i want you to think of this as something that you encounter with some of the narcissists in your life now one of the first questions is what are some of your deepest hurts if you were to ask a narcissist that question they would just look at you like why would you ask a stupid question like that i don't have hurts i mean sometimes they may actually say i you know these people over here and they they weren't very good or these people over here i didn't like the way they handle it but then what they do is they'll say that doesn't bother me it's just their problem and so they don't admit uh that they struggle or they've had strain and tension they blame but the uh at the end of it all they have to come out looking like i'm strong i'm better than all that you may have hurts but i don't but then when you think well if you don't have any hurts why are you so mean or why are you so caustic or why are you so rude to other individuals you had to learn there from somewhere and they don't understand that that that illustrates that they've been on the receiving end of some uh some improper treatment but their notion is well the way that i show that i'm strong i don't admit it i'm above all that kind of stuff yeah the rest of you peons have weaknesses but in healthy relationships we understand well admitting weaknesses is a strength that's something that's lost on the narcissist now a second question that goes right along with that and that is why is it so difficult to the point of impossible for you to admit flaws and mistakes you know whenever a narcissist blunders or makes mistakes and we all do rather than saying uh that didn't go out very well or all very well and i i miscalculated that or boy did i just see that in a wrong kind of light i'm so sorry they can't do that now they can blame if if the mistake is so obvious that you just have to acknowledge the fact that something didn't go right they'll just say well it was your fault it certainly wasn't mine narcissists have such a thick wall of defensiveness around them that you will not get to know them and admitting flaws and and talking about their mistakes is highly threatening to them because it means that that uh that they're a regular person and it's like no you're not going to know me as a regular person or a third question and this one may make you think oh yeah i see this one and that is why do you feel the need to impress strangers now when i'm around strangers or you're around strangers or people that you don't know very well you you certainly want to be friendly and pleasant but narcissists when they see people that don't know them very well they're thinking this is a blank slate here and i get to write whatever story i want to write and so the strangers represent shallowness and superficiality in the sense that they just don't know what they don't know and so the narcissists can think well i'm going to let you know how terrific i am and so they can make up all sorts of stories or embellish how wonderful they are they're fishing for admiration and so when they have somebody that doesn't have the advantage advantage of knowing some of the behind the scenes stuff it's like i'll get admiration from them they'll walk away think what a really nice person when in fact it's all phony true affirmation and love and encouragement comes as we know each other's uh fullness pluses and minuses not just the superficial stuff that's another truth that's lost on the narcissist a fourth question and that is why my differences threaten you so much you know if you interpret things differently or if you have a different emotional reaction or if you have a different preference it's like why are you doing this to me and it threatens them it's because they have no empathy they have no notion that other people have their angles that they operate with and empathy means that you're willing to see life from another person's perspective and it's like i don't have any curiosity about you and how you think and how you feel and i have no desire for another perspective so it's of course my differentness threatens them in the sense that it says you're you're not the center of the of the universe right in this moment it's like oh yes i am and so their lack of interest in you uh reflects their need to be the center of attention at all times or number five do you honestly believe that your opinions cancel out the validity of others opinions you know there are so many different topics and subjects that arouse varying opinions and it could be the big stuff like politics and religion i mean those are topics we can talk about all day long and have very different thoughts about it but it can be some simple things like what you like to do for entertainment or where you want to go on your vacation they have an opinion about everything and rather than saying well here's my opinion what's yours it's like no uh i don't want to know your opinion uh and so in their mind it's like there's only one that matters and it's me and so they honestly do believe they've got such a uh a high and lofty notion about how life is supposed to be it's like well then if you have something that's different it's just it's probably irrelevant or a sixth question we could ask them and that is in what ways do you need to grow and change now there are a lot of people that ask you know particularly when you get to know people and if you really want to know if they're sincere or not ask them this question in what ways do you need to grow and change and the narcissist is thinking well you know i could probably have a nicer house or i could probably you know make more money or something like that but it's like grow change i don't need to grow and change and again they they have to have such a tightly sculpted image that they have out there to suggest that they need to grow and change implies uh that they're not a complete person and it it uh it illustrates that they live with a hidden shame you know uh to suggest that you need to grow means uh you don't have it all together and to them it's like oh that's the worst thing uh possible they can't answer that question or seventh question and that is if i make you feel so frustrated why do you keep coming back now sometimes the narcissist will just say get out of here forget it i can't stand you but they can have a lot of anger and strain and tension and when you just think man they've just so expended all of that emotion at my expense they never want to be around me they keep coming back and they keep criticizing you why do they do that and the answer is it makes them feel superior and then every time you gripe and whine and complain it's like that that feeds them that's their supply it's like well you need me around to just keep you straight and it just makes me feel like i'm that much better conflict and strain and tension actually allows them to enter into their fake place of superiority and then an eighth question is why do you go silent now sometimes in their uh ways of dealing with you they'll just kind of give you the silent treatment and they just ignore you or they'll pull back and they'll withdraw they keep secrets they don't let you know what's going on and uh it's all part of their fear of course and it's it's all uh it illustrates that they can have propensities towards passive aggressive anger they they get their anger out but with the least amount of vulnerability so those are some questions that a narcissist just simply can't answer they can't be open they can't access the interior of themselves now i'm hoping that as you observe these kind of things that you'll have an entirely different mindset that you can draw upon for example i'm hoping you can think things like i like being personable and in addition to that i like being accountable i'm fine with that i hope that i never stop learning and growing i want to be free and freedom means that you don't have to hide behind pretenses and then there's another thought that i'm hoping you can go along with this is one of gus's favorites love me love my dog that's an old southern saying when you get me you get what comes with me love me love my dog i i just had to throw that one in for gus gus is not here today or another thought that i'm hoping you can hold on to and that is coming to terms with your mistakes and failures is part of the growth process i embrace that or another thought that i hope you can hold on to is if we love each other it means we love all of each other we just put it all out there and life is simpler when we're not conniving and looking for an anger angle we each are a combination of pluses and minuses and so we can stay away from the extremes i'm not going to look at you as all minuses nor do we need to look at you as all pluses we can we can as we get to know each other we're going to see the entire spectrum so as we enter into our relationships there is knowing which means we might accumulate certain facts and impressions about each other and then there's knowing which means that we share who we are down at the heart level and i'm hoping you're going to have that heart level kind of knowing that you bring to relationships narcissists it just simply isn't going to happen it's not in them to do so that being the case you want to make sure that you're not wasting your emotional energy on someone that just isn't going to be able to engage with you and i'm hoping you can find some people who really want to invest in you as you would invest in them with a sense of realness and openness and authenticity now i do hope that you gain value from videos such as this if you've not already done so i would encourage you to hit that subscribe button sometimes when you uh see videos such as this it arouses a need for you to uh to talk this out and right now uh people uh are going to online counseling in in large numbers the statistics are very interesting and i've vetted a group that can work with you online with licensed professional counselors and if you'd like to access that we have a trusted sponsor a link to a trusted sponsor that can help you out in that regard we have our surviving narcissism dot tv and dr les carter websites also on thursdays uh 11 30 central time on facebook surviving narcissism i'm doing a q a live a live stream on that so go go check that out join me on thursdays there at facebook the surviving narcissism and then in addition we have my online video workshops and books and i hope you would avoid yourself to that i hope that you can have a life of openness with the people that matter most to you i hope that you can have a sense of equality with one another and acceptance of each other and as you engage in those kind of healthy characteristics i'm hoping that will take you to a good life of peace [Music] you

Channel: Surviving Narcissism

Views: 1,200,967

Rating: 4.9239149 out of 5

Keywords: narcissism, Dr. Les Carter, narcissism in relationships, anger, covert narcissism, gaslighting

Id: _7qsxeQrKhg

Length: 13min 25sec (805 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 27 2020