A Narcissist's Dirty Little Secret

[Music] if you spend much time around people that have a real strong narcissistic bent you're going to recognize that it's very important to them to give off the air that says i'm a really together person now my emotions my sense my way of doing life is really good and solid and you would be fortunate to be as emotionally balanced as me now when they present themselves in that kind of way they really need to say that i i'm truly a special person they're covering up a dirty little secret that hides on the inside of themselves and that dirty little secret is simply this narcissists are very emotionally needy now when you say that to a narcissist i think you're an emotionally needy person they will just um flat out deny and they'll say no that's not true in fact i don't know where you're coming up with that that's just completely false and my response to that is well what does the evidence show us when you deal with narcissists you're talking about somebody that's hungry for praise and admiration and it's it's okay to want that to a certain extent but theirs is in an inordinate need for that they do not want to acknowledge their their humanity their flaws and their strains and their problems it's like i can't do that i can't afford to let anybody know those things about me they constantly make excuses when something goes wrong or they want to be associated with the right people and they want to stay away from the losers at least who they label as losers in their mind they have to be correct and they make no room for diverse opinions and perspectives all of those kind of characteristics are implication of an emotionally needy person the implication is i can only deal with things that fit my grooves and if anything gets outside of my grooves then i don't know what to do and so this this drives their need to be in control and they need to be superior and when they go into this high denial mode about the extent of their neediness it prompts me to want to ask various questions of them let me run through a few of these questions and see if you might have had some of the same questions in your mind as you deal with the narcissist in your life and that is one of the first questions is why is it so important that i have to think precisely as you think and i have to perceive things precisely as you perceive things you see if if you or i show our differences from a narcissist we just show that we think differently nothing else nothing terribly controversial they're over there interpreting that as rejection it's like you're down on my case aren't you you're you're going against me and it's like no i just don't perceive the same as you but in their neediness they have such a powerful craving for your affirmation that any hint that you might not uh offer it or there might be some sort of deviation that's a threat to them or another question and that is why are you so easily triggered when we disagree not only can they not really manage to the thought that you're too different but when you continue to go into that direction they become angry now you perhaps you know that i have a deep history of giving anger workshops and one of the things i've said throughout my career is uh the way you manage your anger gives us a window into your soul um anger down at its base implies uh that you're wanting to stand up for yourself you're wanting to stand up for your worth as a human being you're wanting to stand up for your legitimate needs and convictions and all of that is is reasonable but when you have that narcissistic anger uh you're that that person's wanting to stand up for themselves but in a neurotic kind of way uh it's their way of saying i just can't deal with it when you're different from me and i can't handle it and so the anger is their way of saying i so need you to think like me and to conform to me that i'll fall apart if you don't get that or if you don't do that and and that's a pattern that's just glaringly obvious once you see it but they'll say no that doesn't represent my emotional neediness and it's like yes it does or another question that you might ask why can't you be honest about both your highs and your lows and the uh the needy narcissist uh if they were being honest would say well if i admit my lows then that makes me appear weak and see your reaction my reaction can be well if you admit your highs and your lows that just says you're human like the rest of us and in their neediness it's like no i have to just be known uh in an elevated kind of way i i can't manage it if somebody knows about some of my weaknesses like go ahead admit it's just part of your humanity no i can't do that and they're their emotional emptiness does not allow them to do so or another question that i'd like to ask if you say you're not this emotionally needy individual then why are you so bothered when people show themselves to be other and when i say other it can have all sorts of different implications whether it's lifestyle preferences or political beliefs or religious beliefs or interpretations of events why is it so threatening when people are other and again it's like well i'm afraid that if they're two other then they might deem me to be an outsider and i'm i'm not going to be one of them and and i i need i need to have people conform to me because that way it affirms who i am it makes me feel better about myself it's like well can we have some affirmation even in the midst of our otherness it's like not i can't do that i'm afraid of what that might imply another question uh did it occur to you that other people's emotions and perceptions could possibly be valid now when you're an emotionally balanced balanced kind of individual it's like well i've got my emotions but i'm sure you have yours too i have my perceptions what about yours but in their neediness for uh being in the superior or accepted position it's like no i don't want to have to deal with your emotions or perceptions that stray from who i am i don't know what to do with that or another question why do you repeatedly have to build yourself up at other people's expense and the bottom line is they don't have anything on the inside to build upon and so what they do is they squash you so they can step on you and have a foundation for their their self-esteem so the dirty little secret is i'm an emotionally needy person and when you begin looking at the evidence and you ask them these kind of questions you realize that they have very low insight in fact an astonishingly low insight there's an interesting irony here they really do need you and what you represent you represent supply to them by the way they just want you to give them what they need so that they can feel elevated they need you and yet they despise you at the same time and all this tells me is they have a very shallow understanding of the human experience now i mentioned the term being emotionally balanced yes a balanced person says i i do have needs and i'm okay with that but there's a sense of balance i've got my needs but i also have my sense of well-being that's intact at the same time you can have both let me kind of run through some thoughts about what an emotionally balanced person would be like and you can compare that to where the narcissist is coming from an emotionally balanced person says well i need i want to be respected and then they model respect and that's that's how it works or the balanced person says i also want to be understood so i'm going to show you understanding i i'm going to there's a give and take there i want to find peace and so i'll not be a troublemaker the balanced person says i like harmony so i don't feel the need to be divisive uh i like it when others show curiosity and so i'm naturally curious about you uh i want to be treated fairly which means that i too will be a fair-minded person i want to not be treated with civility and so i'm going to manage myself with a certain discipline towards other individuals i prefer being treated honorably therefore i try to treat others with honor when i want cooperation with respect to life's demands and so at the same time i will show myself to be a cooperative person i can feel hurt when i'm insulted and i'd like to have better treatment than that therefore i'll make sure that i'm not known as being an insulting individual i dislike rejection and so i'm going to seek to be an inclusive person i'm turned off by selfishness and so that being the case i want to make sure that i'm known as a conscientious person i feel calmer when people are agreeable and so i want to see if i can find moments of agreement even in the midst of disagreement i can disagree agreeably i feel hurt when someone deems me to be inferior therefore i want to make sure that i seek to be a person that emphasizes equality i want connections and i i i want to remain pliable with other individuals and therefore i'm going to use common sense when that is required you see it's okay to say i have these wants i have these needs and i'm going to do the best that i can to be a balanced person in this the dirty little secret though of the narcissist is well first of all i can't even admit the fact that i have needs and and that's not part of the problem they're so needy uh that just to simply say that uh implies oh this is gonna be so bad and so they put on this put up the shield they put up their false self and they want you to think that they're beyond reproach when in fact they're just like a a scared little boy or girl that says i don't know how to do life well but i'm going to try to pretend like i've got the tiger by the tail when in fact they don't so let's acknowledge everybody has needs it's just simply part of our humanity we're social beings and we're meant to be interconnected with each other and if the narcissist can't admit that dirty little secret that they're carrying around that tells me one thing and that is we simply don't have much of a foundation at all that you and i can build upon i'd like to but it takes two doesn't it i do hope that uh videos such as this can give you some insight as to what you're dealing with and if you've not already done so and you haven't hit that subscribe button i would encourage you to do so so that we can keep you apprised of more videos that come along it may be that listening to a video such as this it may prompt you to think i i'd like to get some counseling and if you have someone in your area that can help you i would encourage you to do so if you don't we vetted a group uh there's a link below that uh you can be helpful with some online counseling and right now it's very pop it's a very popular medium for that and i would encourage you to seek some counseling in another thing we also have i have a new workshop called free to be and we have a link below for that we have other workshops that are there now a link to my library that has mine and large books there we also have surviving survivingnarcissism.tv.lescarter.com lots of resources beneath and our aim is to help you help yourself narcissists are very needy people just as you and i can be needy but the difference is uh we can admit it and in doing so we can find that balance narcissists don't have balance and so that being the case you don't want to get pulled into their web of denial and all that goes with it and in doing so i hope that you can show the alternative of steadiness decency and most of all i'm hoping that you can find your good place of peace

Channel: Surviving Narcissism

Views: 95,175

Rating: 4.9675412 out of 5

Keywords: narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder, Dr. Les Carter, Surviving Narcissisim, covert narcissism, gaslighting, malignant narcissism, anger

Id: LynK0aiaFxA

Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 29 2020