A Covert Narcissist's Long Game

if you have ongoing exposure to controlling people it's a virtual certainty that you're going to experience blurry boundaries which is why i have created the extensive online course called this is me establishing boundaries with the controllers in your life there's a link below that will give you all of the details and i hope that you would find it in therapeutic [Music] [Applause] [Music] it can be said with a great deal of certainty that narcissists are masters of disguise in other words what you see isn't necessarily what you're going to get in the long term and this is especially true when we're talking about covert narcissists now let's keep in mind that these individuals want every bit as much the need to have the need for control and dominance and superiority as their over counterparts but they tend to be a little bit more subtle in the way that they go about doing it and many times it takes quite a bit of time for that that narcissism to reveal itself the covert narcissist just like any overt narcissist looks at you for narcissistic supply they need you to prop them up and so they've decided well if i'm too out there if i'm too outlandish in the way that i try to get you to maintain my supply then you're going to leave pretty quickly and so they they're in it for the long haul and over time their schemes can be revealed but at first you don't necessarily see it now this is most commonly experienced when you already have factors in place that are going to keep you bound to that individual anyway for example if you have children together or if this is someone who's part of your extended family and you're going to be seeing each other for quite a bit or socially you know that you need that person they know that they need you around because you're a means to an end so they want to kind of keep you in their good graces or at work you're both there at the place of work because you need the job and so you're going to be bound with each other and sometimes the the long term element is there because that person feels a duty you feel a duty whether it's morally or otherwise to keep the relationship moving the pattern of the long game is based or has two strong elements that go along with it and it's so essential for you to understand what these two elements are the first is what we refer to as intermittent reinforcement the long-term pattern of covert narcissism is set up by the intermittent reinforcement basically the narcissist is going to let you think i'm with you not really and there are lots of mood swings and they give you lots of mixed messages and with intermittent reinforcement the goal is to keep you in a state of confusion they don't want you to be confident about your about your conclusions that you might draw and then the second primary element that tells us that you're in the long game with a covert narcissist is that there's a slow steady building of a trauma bond you you might think to yourself i want to be my own free person but then over time it's like you begin thinking uh i don't know if that would be a good idea and so as time goes on when you're with this covert narcissist your own confidence in your decision decision-making begins to erode the narcissist wants you to think less less about who you are and you have to continue to filter your behaviors your beliefs your priorities through them that's how it works and that's how they establish the long game with you now let's break that down uh the intermittent reinforcement and the the trauma bond uh when we talk about re intermittent reinforcement first we're talking about that that covert narcissist giving you just enough positive reinforcement to keep a glimmer of hope alive if you ever had situations where you thought you know well you know we had a good day or we were working on a project that turned out all right and you know we laughed we had some some nice conversation but then over time it's like but we can't keep it sustained and so uh in the in the intermittent reinforcement uh the covert narcissist is also going to give you messages of disappointment well i thought we were doing pretty good but you keep screwing things up and they're going to intermittently give you messages of rejection and this is meant to keep you working harder to stay in their good graces and so that's what we talk about uh with intermittent reinforcement in other words the reinforcement of any positives is not constant it's it's consistently inconsistent it's reliably unreliable if you understand what i'm saying and then when we take it uh over a long period of time you know that the trauma bond is happening when you keep going back to that person uh that narcissist for approval whether it's in your mind or actually in the way that you communicate you know why can't we just get along better than this didn't don't you see that i've done these nice things for you and you start bargaining with that person and you've quietly bought into the message that you're not adequate uh the narcissist might imply they may say it out loud but the implication is hey nice try but you're still not good enough and so as a result you keep going back thinking what do i have to do to stay in this person's good graces and a bonding of a negative variety begins to to happen and ultimately uh you may not see it in the in the moment but an outside observer would realize this relationship the covert narcissist has with you is a game and you're the toy that they're playing with so taking it a little bit further let's understand that when you're dealing with a covert narcissist quietly that narcissist has already determined what the script is that that person has written the script and your input is not necessary how many times have you thought to yourself well i want to share my thoughts about where we could go and our relationships like no i'm good they don't really want to hear from you on things like that now there are times when you can experience moments of optimism uh and then you start thinking well you know maybe we're going somewhere good but then ultimately that positive feeling simply cannot be sustained and i've had so many people talk with me about how i keep trying and i think maybe we're getting somewhere but then we just go backwards you know it's the old two steps forward and three step backwards and whenever things go backwards guess whose fault it is it's your fault there's lots of blame that comes along with it and shame that they put onto you and that that becomes part of the bonds you need to try harder come on you need to try harder to stay in my good graces and so you do and then the uh the message is um we would have a good relationship if it weren't for you i'm doing everything right and that's that self-impressed attitude that the narcissist brings and sometimes the the put down toward you is subtle sometimes it's extremely obvious and in the meantime when all of this is and by the way that just becomes a cycle that's repeated over and over uh and in the meantime as the narcissist is playing this long game with you you'll notice certain things that uh that go along with that they don't really give you a lot of of credit for your strengths or your successes it's like when you shine when you do well that threatens them because in the relationship you see that script says they're supposed to be the one that gets to shine uh the narcissist uh might hand out those positive reinforcements you know gifts or compliments and then it doesn't take time before there's going to send the message that says never mind i quit or i didn't mean it and so again you have that come on in to me stay away from me and then if you're having conversation with a narcissist about what might be going on in the relationship that needs uh improvement they might and emphasize might admit faults but then if they do admit any kind of faults like yeah i shouldn't have gotten some ad or maybe i need to spend more time with you it tends to be superficial and ultimately they'll eventually backtrack on whatever admissions they make about their contributions to the negatives inside the relationship ultimately then it becomes your job to keep the relationship fixed but at the same time you're the one who needs to be fixed okay and so again that's that uh them looking at you as supply and then the mixed messages that uh that have uh that keep going on and then when when outsiders are observing your relationship that covert narcissist can turn on the charm they can use humor be friendly and be pleasant and so they give the impression to other individuals that yeah we're good and you watch that and say well maybe maybe we're getting somewhere but then in private you find out once again that you're a disappointment and uh the narcissist still wants you to have loyalty toward them but it's always fleeting and it's never really exchanged in reverse that's what i'm talking about when i say they hook you in for the long haul intermittent reinforcement and then they pull you slowly into a trauma bond you constantly are feeling perplexed you feel like you're being played you're in a guessing game you feel less than secure but you feel like you can't get out now at the base of all of this you can see that you have the core ingredients loud and clear in the covert narcissist they want to have dominance they want to have control they're very self-impressed they're very entitled but they're just not quite as loud and out there as others might be but i'm hoping that over time you can realize wait a minute we have a pattern going on here and it's been going on for way too long and i don't need to participate in this and you may feel duped and you may feel foolish for having stayed in a relationship that's not healthy for you but the bottom line is if you see it now then you can do something about it and i'm hoping that you can eventually once you see this pattern you can eventually decide you know i can't afford to allow my psychological well-being to hinge on the whims of a schemer so when you claim your own privilege to choose for yourself who you'll be and then that narcissistic person predictably comes against you then i think it's going to be necessary for you to ask the question what does it say about a relationship when i'm not even allowed to simply be me i don't think that's a relationship worth continuing now i hope that uh in that videos such as this can give you some good insight with respect to what you're dealing with as i've mentioned the covert narcissist tends to be the one that uh they reveal themselves much more slowly so it's much more difficult to know what you're dealing with but once you do i'm hoping you can be on it and make your own adjustments and unhook where necessary if you've not already hit the subscribe button uh go ahead and do that hit the like button too would appreciate that and we'll keep more videos because the more you're able to educate yourself on this then knowledge is power and you're able to be live into your best version of yourself if you have a need for therapy and i know that many times as you're trying to sift this out you could use someone to help you you know see what your blind spots might be and look at your deep history and how you got hooked into this and so we we are sponsored by the people at betterhelp.com it's an online therapy resource there's a link below that will take you to a whole team of licensed professional therapists that you can choose from in addition i also have my therapeutic courses and these are like taking an online class they're very extensive lots of videos questions and and written material ready set connect about having good connection skills this is me about your boundaries free to be finding yourself despite the controllers we have my podcast we have our uh we have our a website with lots of uh of articles on there and then we have my books and more resources thanks for letting me be part of your journey the covert narcissist they'll play this long game with you but over time i'm hoping you can uh remind yourself it's exactly that it's a game and i don't want anybody to see me as a toy to be messed with instead i'm hoping you can see yourself as a person of dignity respect and civility that's what we stand for here on team healthy and in doing so you can find your place of peace [Music]

Channel: Surviving Narcissism

Views: 142,656

Keywords: gaslighting, covert narcissism, trauma bonding, psychology, mental health, Dr. Les Carter, passive aggressive, anger

Id: d_I7y1emO5M

Length: 13min 54sec (834 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 29 2022