Everything YOU Need to Know About GRANDIOSE Narcissists

because you really believed their hype or their pitch or their charismatic Sparkle it's easy to believe when you're with them that you're in the presence of greatness and then once you witness their first tantrum you realize that and not so great in fact that you may be in the presence of something far more damaged and sinister hey hey everyone you know what Nobody Does it Better Than Me like yeah I made my sales quota by the second day of the month please by the halfway it's like no one else in any territory and by the end of the month it's like dude why aren't you the CEO yeah I'm going to scroll myself into Tesla next month you know but before you know it it's gonna be a Lambo in the drive well you know this person I mean by the time they finished talking you're like please wait or drink it's it can be atrocious to listen to but not all grandiosity is that sort of circus-like kind of performance art grandiosity with a person's raging on and on about how great they are they're gonna be quieter levels of grandiosity but by and large the takeaway is look how great I am sometimes grandiosity can actually sound a bit disturbing like you know hey everyone I am going to quit my job and I am going to start a such and such company whatever I'm going to start a new pineapple juice company I know nothing about pineapple juice but I know a lot about a lot and I love drinking pineapple juice so why wouldn't I be able to start a pineapple juice company okay so grandiosity is this idea that a person is somehow Larger than Life and can make ridiculously large goals come true they often brag about their achievements way out of proportion with what's reality an interesting thing about grandiosity is most narcissists have some form of grandiosity they will talk about goals they have set for themselves but they haven't actually achieved but because the goal is so grandiose like yeah well I'm a freshman in college but I'm already preparing to get my MD my PhD and my JD and meanwhile I mean if you spot them the T and the E they probably can't spell the so they're but they're already talking about this goal as though they're participating in it so they'll talk about the professional sports contract they're going to get or the massive promotion they're going to get or the fact that they have no doubt they'll get a record deal and so they talk about the future goal the future vacation the house they're going to have the car they're going to drive as though it's already happening on the front end listening to a narcissist to be grandiose is a bit like listening to a drunk in a bar it's entertaining for the first five minutes but then it can get very trying but obviously if this is your partner or family member or co-worker it gets exhausting really quickly because what grandiosity does is it pulls away from real life like when you're trying to pay real bills and do real housework and do a real job and somebody's yammering on about these unreachable goals or wasting time or even wasting the family's money and doing this or just won't shut up about the things that are going on in their life and keep talking about them and it's really pumped up way it can get exhausting and it doesn't just require that this person be doing something really grandiose and exciting like that they're a movie star or a business leader they could be doing a whole heck of a lot of nothing and be quite grandiose there's also an interesting kind of form of covert grandiosity we see in people particularly when we see covert narcissists we've talked about covert or vulnerable narcissists before on on my YouTube channel and it's this idea of these people who sort of more like a solid resentful narcissism their grandiosity also tends to be Sullen and resentful so instead of saying it's not like look how great I am in a cheerful way it's like Ugh the world never noticed how smart I was I guess I was just born 20 years too soon because had I been born later on or had I been born earlier like I've been running this place you know I guess the world just isn't ready for my kind of Genius I can I can deal with that and then they Retreat to the confines of their mother's basement after making that statement it's very much that sense that the world let them go by and their greatness and didn't notice it so this could also be the person who never quite got the recording deal or who never got the professional sports contract but they still reflect on their Glory Days as a high school athlete so again grandiosity is somebody who almost doesn't live in the real world and should I stay or should I go I actually talked about it as the idea that a six-year-old boy tying a towel around his neck and running around and saying hey superman is really sweet and it's developmentally appropriate a 36 year old man tying a towel around his neck and running around and saying hey superman is very sad and grandiosity is a defense that's a way a child can someone protects himself from the world and the idea that they're not actually and they grow into the realization I'm not Superman and that's okay the narcissist never gets that grandiosity is a key of narcissism you see it whether it's the Sullen grandiosity of the covert narcissist the over the top um grandiosity of sort of the classical or the malignant narcissist it's very much a fixed feature of narcissism you rarely see this without it they're not bragging all the time but especially whether things are going well or things are going badly it'll always come back to this grandiose theme of look how great I am or the world doesn't recognize how great I am it's exhausting it's a bit tiresome and while it can be entertaining from time to time in a pretty short order whether it's your parents your partner or your friend you're going to find yourself rolling your eyes if you have a boss who's a who's grandiose and narcissistic it can actually be frustrating because that boss will be focusing too much on like let's be the top ranked company and let's get a new headquarters and meanwhile you're thinking like oh my gosh this business is hemorrhaging money or we're not doing what we said we would do so you're looking at the the stuff of the business and your grandiose boss is very busy planning and wasting money on a parade so grandiosity takes a toll on all of us even when it's entertaining step away gently because it never ends well today we're going to take on the grandiose narcissist now before I get there because this is going to be a good series please hit that subscribe button join this YouTube community of people who care deeply about issues related to narcissistic relationships hit that Bell and you'll get a daily notification each day a new episode comes out but let's talk about the grandiose narcissist and in essence this is really starting at the very beginning because the grandiose narcissist is the classical narcissist this is the kind of narcissist this is the textbook narcissist this is the one that comes up when you look up the picture of a narcissist in the dictionary these are the ones that are Charming charismatic cocky arrogant confident often on top of the world attractive well put together articulate narcissist these are the ones we associate with success with glamor with celebrity now the classical grandiose narcissist is the type of narcissist on whom the traditional definitions of narcissism have largely been based these are the ones these are the narcissistic individuals who classically show diminished empathy lots of entitlement grandiosity arrogance a chronic need for validation and consistent admiration seeking superficiality and vanity rage especially when they're disappointed or frustrated hypersensitivity in the face of criticism difficulty managing stressors such as disappointment they tend to love power and pleasure and profit and they tend to measure success in terms of power pleasure and profit these are the very slick fancy full of themselves narcissists they are the narcissists and you've seen it these are the ones they look good when things are going well and because they are able to manipulate the reality of the world around them life tends to often go really well for them but so somebody out there is ever going to bat a thousand and always have a perfect streak when disappointment finally does arise in their lives I don't know a partner finally breaks up with them the deal they wanted to make doesn't go through they don't get into the law school that they want they don't get the promotion they think that they deserve their kid doesn't get to be a starter on the soccer team their new business doesn't turn out to be that profitable their friend marries someone much wealthier than their partner whatever their version of disappointment is when that happens then the cracks show they can become very rageful they don't take responsibility they project blame on other people so given all of that why are they so attractive to everyone well let's face it they are in full possession of the four C's of narcissism charm Charisma confidence and cleverness when you meet a grandiose narcissist you almost feel like you're being pulled into this really special place and can often get a whiff of the grandiose High just by being in their presence when you first meet them you may take note of the fact that yeah they do talk about themselves a lot and their fancy lives and the fancy things that they do they talk about that a lot but their stories are actually so interesting and so big that it can feel like you're almost being pulled into like a really cool living Instagram story or something but that's not really a person is it and so many people I know who ended up married to grandiose narcissists will talk about that moment they met they felt like they were in a movie now what are some of the warning signs of a grandiose narcissist pretty early in the game they will get bored when you or someone else is talking and the attention at that time is not on them they may drone on and on and on about their vacation or their car or their job or their kids or whatever but once someone else attempts to participate in the conversation they're going to start kind of looking around the room you know stop making eye contact might sort of fiddle with their phone you know they may even make that excuse that classical excuse that they are ADHD but interestingly they weren't so ADHD a few minutes ago when they were doing their whole look at me soliloquy so yeah that's not how ADHD works when you have ADHD you have ADHD not like oh when I'm talking about me I've got the laser focus now another mistake people make is confusing their grandiosity and their tendency towards self-promotion as confidence A good rule of thumb to remember is that genuinely confident people don't actually talk about themselves that much people who are good know they're good and they're often quite humble because they're self-possessed that they know what they know and they don't know what they don't know so they will allow other people to talk or hold the floor but so many of us are humble that we are often a little bit sort of perversely and strangely impressed by someone who's willing to sort of sit down and talk about their own virtues and gifts and magnificent qualities let's face it humility never goes out of style chronic self-promotion gets tired really quickly but because when we see it it is still somewhat unusual we're like oh that's interesting and we pay attention grandiose narcissist especially when you're in the courtship process are the Masters Of Love bombing they love to put on a show and winning you over is part of that show you feel like almost like a character in a play so these are the ones that might do the over-the-top gestures in the beginning of the relationship and you spend the rest of the relationship wondering what happened to those Heyday early days when you're going to all the best places and doing the coolest things and my goodness these grandiose narcissists can look really good on paper and sometimes they may even be lying on paper but no matter what they do make themselves look good on paper now it depends on what looks good to you on paper it may be the right car the place that they live the school that they attended the job that they have the salary that they earn the family that they come from the way that they look and again every one of you has a different list but as a rule they tend to be really good at hitting the superficial aspects of the list which often is about very material success so where do they come from how do we make or how do we generate these grandiose narcissists very often your grandiose narcissists are the kids who are raised sometimes in a way that they're told they are so wonderful so great especially when they excel at the thing their parents want them to excel at so when they're the great soccer player they love them but when that child has an emotional need parents aren't as interested and aren't that connected as a result as a child many people who go on to be grandiose narcissists they learn that working on their superficial exterior is a better investment of their resources because that is what will keep their parents and other adults engaged in many cases and the simplest way to view this is that grandiose narcissists are both over indulged because they get so much praise and recognition for doing good looking good everyone sort of rallies around them to help them succeed but at the same time they're under indulged they're never taught to regulate their feelings they never really get the chance to have their emotions mirrored they may also be children who are mirroring the behavior of their own entitled parents parents who are distracted with their own lives and their own stuff and their own experiences and can't be bothered with the nitty-gritty of raising their children in an emotional manner Society doesn't help in all of this in many ways these are the narcissists that are the most enabled by Society social media has given them a Mothership and grandiose narcissists love social media and their tendency to self-promotion and overselling their abilities or their so-called virtues and their willingness to break the rules to get ahead means that the grandiose narcissist even when they're kids are often rewarded by school and as they get older by their employers and by the World At Large and as they get more and more power the world enables them because it can be a real problem if you get on the wrong side of a grandiose narcissist for example if you have a grandiose narcissistic boss who doesn't Advance you in their job that's how they'll Stick it to you there or the grandiose narcissistic parent who cuts you out of the will trust me you don't want to get on their wrong side because they will make sure there is hell to pay now why is it so hard to let a grandiose narcissist go they don't like losing so they will keep using tricks like hoovering to keep you on the hook if they do want to keep you around now if you are already married to a grandiose narcissist or in a family with them or work with them and they are overly concerned about things like appearances which grandiose narcissists are typically over concerned about appearances then they're going to care more that you still put on a show for the world and convince you that this facade you put to the world that we're just that happy perfect family that you stick around they may even future fake you to keep you hooked in and because a relationship with a grandiose narcissist really does feel like a slot machine more than relationships with other narcissists you Cape you keep on wasting time and frankly money on them you keep thinking just like with that slot machine you're gonna win and you're gonna win them over and that good feeling and that excitement that the grandiose narcissist brings from the very beginning might even come back for a minute you might get love bombed again that hope is always hanging out there grandiose narcissists can really run hot and cold so you don't always know what you're getting with them and sadly that can almost make these relationships more enticing so you try to keep the relationship going and try new strategies in the hope that things are going to change as you know they're not going to grandiose narcissists really play on the trifecta of Hope fear and guilt that keep people stuck in these relationships hope that it'll go back to one of those good early love bombing days fear that you will never find excitement like this again or that you might wind up alone and guilt well there were some good times and you know it wouldn't be very nice of me to step away because he sure is concerned that we all look good like a family to the community and I don't want to wreck that for him so when we compare the grandiose narcissists to the other kinds of narcissists of all of them these these grandiose narcissists they're the shiniest ones of all and as always remember that these narcissistic types often overlap so you can see a narcissist who's both grandiose and communal and they'll be more about that later in the series now also remember that when we look at the theoretical work of researchers who study narcissism such as Elsa running stem they argue that pretty much all grandiose narcissists have this covert underbelly and vice versa covert narcissists have a grandiose underbelly so if things go upside down for long enough for a grandiose narcissist they will start looking like a victimized covert narcissist now the grandiose narcissist doesn't have the Menace and the cruelty of the malignant narcissist and the grandiose narcissist can certainly be something we see as part of a larger cultural picture of narcissism for example someone comes from a culture where they have a lot of privilege that could be driving their grandiosity a grandiose narcissist may also be a byproduct of privilege someone who grows up with lots of money and power and access and this can result in a person who thinks that their you know what don't stink and they will be the ones who sort of parade around and think that they deserve special attention we're going to start by trying to understand and ask the question how do grandiose narcissists impact us because we know that these narcissistic patterns are never good for us so let's sort of ask that question how do they impact us now like all narcissists grandiose narcissist patterns can result in narcissistic abuse and all the associated self-doubt second guessing rumination anxiety sadness powerlessness hopelessness frustration and helplessness the grandiose narcissist is in many ways quite tricky because the good days with them can feel so good and keep you hooked in it's like you just want another one of those good days so you yo-yo between some really exciting good days and some really awful bad ones every morning in these relationships can be quite tricky when you have to wake up and wonder what kind of day is it going to be and the problem is it's going to be whatever day they sometimes have even out of the house now in an intimate relationship the grandiose narcissist can be really exhausting because they do need so much validation and they are so superficial and the potential for for herd is so high because of their triple threat of entitlement grandiosity and lack of empathy with the the sort of grand cherry on top is their tendency to be Liars that means that these are the narcissists who actually are most often likely to cheat on you which hurts and can feel humiliating and because they are Master gaslighters they are able to lie about it and leave you feeling even more upside down the exciting days of the love bombing can often leave you yearning for the long faded days of the past no more love bombings happening unless they're trying to Hoover you back in and a lifetime of making excuses for their terrible behavior and many times because they need so much Supply you know they're going to turn to other people for Supply so you'll often exhaust yourself trying to keep up with the supply they're getting in other places now in a family relationship growing up with a grandiose narcissistic parent meant that either you were invisible if you were not the source of Supply that they wanted or you were a handmaid to ensure that grandiose narcissistic parent got his or her steady diet of validation in addition it can be a very unpredictable childhood with some days actually being really really wonderful and sometimes maybe even Larger than Life like that day Dad gets his raise sort of a really exciting day or night around the house but some days can be just horrible that day that Dad didn't get his raise and kids in these families can really experience a tremendous toll from all this back and forth highs and lows and if this is another family member such as a sibling who's a grandiose narcissist these are the family members who can suck all of the oxygen out of the room and family gatherings can feel like them that like basically like your sibling or your grandiose narcissist having holding Court while everyone has to sort of watch them perform or brag or talk about their lives the grandiose narcissistic family members they can be the ones the grandiose narcissistic family members they often get enabled and the ones who get enabled are often the ones who achieve material success and they're the ones who pay for vacation and they pick up the check so people will enable them because they still want those free vacations right but the price of admission with these grandiose narcissists is having to listen to their tiresome prattling now grandiose narcissistic bosses can be very charismatic and much larger than life that's why people are often drawn to work with them and they may often have lots of sycophants and butt kissing minions running around all around them hoping for some of their crumbs these are the bosses who are often the proverbial Golden Goose these bosses because they're willing to do what it takes no matter what it is they're the ones who bring in the deals and the profits and the awards and the notoriety so even as they are abusing their workers and abusing their clients the people who have power to get rid of them in these organizations often don't because who wants to kill the Golden Goose right no matter who they're abusing the grandiose narcissistic boss can be particularly crazy making because they are so good at winning over so many of the people at the company who fall for The Superficial charm and charisma so as a result they can end up having a lot of Defenders wherever they work and they may end up that whole group of Defenders are flying monkeys as it were and the grandiose narcissist may end up gaslighting the people who and who are the ones who are already getting the worst abuse from the grandiose narcissistic boss grandiose narcissistic bosses and others in the workplace have an uncanny sense of knowing who is able to see right through them and if you're on to the grandiose narcissist trust me they're going to do all they can to silence you isolate you or make your life so miserable at work that you end up wanting to leave if you are lucky you will be there the day that the grandiose narcissistic colleague or the grandiose narcissistic boss has their Fall From Grace it almost always happens but I gotta be honest with you in most cases lots of us leave the workplace long before that happens and we hear about it one day from someone else by an email or something it can be quite entertaining to watch their grandiose facade crumble and the whole thing topple down but sadly you know it can be really quite devastating to watch this too because depending on how high in the food chain this particular grandiose narcissist is they may bring the whole company down through their bad narcissistic entitled grandiose Behavior and many other people's jobs too the grandiose narcissist may be so exciting and so enticing that they may even be the reason you took the job because you didn't understand narcissism yet or you welcomed their mentorship thinking you were lucky to work with them because you really believed their hype or their pitch or their charismatic Sparkle it's easy to believe when you're with them that you're in the presence of greatness and then once you witness their first tantrum you realize that and not so great in fact that you may be in the presence of something far more damaged and sinister so how do you manage the grandiose narcissist now as with all narcissists and I apologize in advance I'm going to be quite repetitive in this series in case all you do is watch one episode it's the usual drill having realistic expectations and radical acceptance they are what they are and they are not going to change especially since it's working for them nothing you do and nothing you say will change them so your best play is to not engage not explain not defend and not personalize what they're saying I know that is much easier said than done now if you can understand this and do this it can make it much easier to set boundaries expend less effort in these relationships experience less disappointment and if you're lucky be able to cut your losses and get out of the relationship which frankly is often the gold standard though I know it's an option not available in all narcissistic relationships now obviously none of this is very easy when the grandiose narcissist is your spouse or your parent or a boss in a job you really need or that's very hard to get but you can endure these relationships by using realistic expectations and radical acceptance now in addition the technique of narcissistic fluffing works really well with grandiose narcissists if you encounter them during a really good phase of their lives validating them can buy you time just to get them off your back or figuring out what you're going to do next now this can be particularly useful if the grandiose narcissist is a boss or a parent you only see from time to time it can be quite exhausting to have to always be validating a narcissistic partner but if you aren't ready to leave this relationship for any reason it can definitely be a way to distract them and get them off your back but the fact is it feels inauthentic to have to keep doing this and it gets really tiresome and soul sapping to have to keep validating your grandiose narcissist over time but once you recognize that when things turn South for the grandiose narcissist that they transform into victims and become more emotionally and verbally abusive and all the fluffing and all of the validation in the world may not make a relationship with a grandiose narcissist bearable now yes I know the good days can be quite entertaining with the grandiose narcissist but the bad days are just so Bleak as is the case with all narcissistic personality styles now most of us who encounter narcissists will recognize the grandiose ones right away it's they're the easiest ones to identify and they're the type of narcissist most glorified in our celebrities and our politicians um in characters featured in films and television programs and in social media while the grandiose narcissist really is sort of the garden variety narcissist we're used to seeing them but the fact of the matter is if one of these Garden variety narcissus pops up in your garden you might want to consider weeding them out the grandiose narcissist has just as much propensity to rage and negative uncomfortable emotions as any of the other narcissists but the grandiose narcissist hates to have those cracks show in his or her armor so they're sometimes even going to have a menacing rage right under the surface but they really hate blowing but will they sometimes blow absolutely especially when things aren't going exactly the way that they want but there's also something that you need to face up to many times people have to cop to the fact that they were drawn to the grandiose narcissist because they really wanted to believe in the fairy tale that that magical night when you meet them when everything's perfect and they look like a million bucks and everyone at the party has their eye on them and they choose you you feel like you've walked into a fairy tale you've got to catch yourself and also wonder what are your scripts about relationships and any kind of human encounter that you got pulled in by all that charm Charisma and confidence I know that I often sound like a cynic when I say oh if you meet someone charming and charismatic runaway and obviously there's many absolutely lovely charming and charismatic people out there but it does mean that we a lot of us almost have to change the entire Paradigm we have about human relationships about how we view the people amongst us who Sparkle brightly brighter than any of the star ours and our various human galaxies and wonder why are we so attuned to the shiniest object of all listen this is a this is a big societal task to teach people like look for the authentic quiet humble person in the corner because that's where the wisdom lurks I'm going to be honest with you all you need to do is turn on the television and see that when it comes down to it nobody's watching television shows about quiet humble authentic people they're watching television shows about I don't know tiger Kings and every other kind of King and things that are just so big and so grandiose it's much more entertaining the key becomes let those grandiose narcissists in your life only to the degree that they entertain you but be very careful before you hand over your vulnerability your trust and the best parts of yourself I hope this Series has clarified what is meant by grandiose narcissism I hope you continue to tune in to the rest of the series just hit subscribe you'll be part of this channel hit that Bell and you'll get notifications about our ongoing episodes not only in this series but all of our ongoing YouTube content thanks again for tuning in

Channel: DoctorRamani

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Id: 8rzFnTvB9AU

Length: 36min 11sec (2171 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 26 2023