Has a narcissist minimized your experience?

hi everyone it's dr romini welcome back to this youtube channel and everything you want to know about narcissism and as you can see we are are talking a bit more too about how to come back from narcissistic relationships too today we're going to talk about something that i don't think gets enough attention we talk so much about gaslighting today we're going to talk about minimization but before we get there please if you're new to this channel join us subscribe hit that subscribe button uh get the notifications we put out new videos every day and as a reminder healing seminar starting because this is it you all know about narcissism it's time to work on the healing part that seminar starts soon please go to the video description hit that link you'll either get on the email list or be able to register really look forward to sharing this programming with you so before we go on any more about all this other stuff let's talk about minimization because i'm not going to minimize it like i said i don't think minimization gets enough attention and i think it's such a damaging dynamic in narcissism i think we minimize minimization when we think and we talk about narcissism and narcissistic abuse we all know that minimization is part of the classical patterns of what happens in a narcissistic relationship but i am actually going right now that's why i'm not in my usual place you're a bit of a family narcissistic thing right now that has gotten pretty bad and it's dovetailed with what i'm seeing my clients experience so i wanted to talk about this so the question is how does minimization show up in narcissistic relationships how does it get in the way of healing and why is it so common in the narcissistic space minimization is a form of denial and of gaslighting that i've talked about on this channel the narcissistic person will often minimize your experiences your distress your feelings in fact it is minimization that often results in the emotional escalation that often happens in encounters in narcissistic relationships for example also when something bad happens to the narcissistic person well the the planet has to stop spinning but when something happens to the bad happens to the other person in the relationship it's not that big a deal right think about how many narcissistic arguments that you have been involved in where you were saying hey wait a minute when something like this that happened to me happened to you it was the end of the world and now it's happening to me and you're making it out like it's nothing how come it was a big deal when it was you and at those times you may escalate and they'll say oh you need to quiet down right minimization it's gaslighting because it challenges your reality you are actually going through something and it's painted out as being not that big a deal when it's actually very important and very impactful for you and then when you are more insistent and say hey hey this is a big deal to me then the narcissistic person will say why are you always so dramatic and exaggerating what is wrong with you so you see how that sequence works minimization is part of the double standard of all narcissistic relationships different sets of rules that they have for themselves and the rest of the world they get the flu and it is a health emergency you get the flu and you are being a hypochondriac and as a result it is one of the more frustrating of the patterns of the narcissistic relationship the narcissistic folks are so grandiose and competitive that even their pain has to be more and better than everyone else's the minimization experience in the narcissistic relationship is a major issue around why people feel so unsafe and so unheard in these relationships for healthy people going through something is how they become more empathic many times we may be at some risk of minimizing if we haven't actually gone through something another person has for example i'll give you an example but person doesn't have children and they have no idea what sleep deprivation is but then they end up having children and they may even feel bad that they were not more empathic to the sleep interruption of their friends who had children before them now that awareness that cycle does not play out in narcissistic relationships instead after the narcissistic person goes through something just when you think they might be more empathic get it that they're actually more likely to minimize other people's experiences i'll share this you know i recently saw this happen in two family members one of whom had a massive 12-hour life-threatening surgery that will require years of rehabilitation and the narcissistic family member comparing a rather routine surgery that took them about an hour or two i think that was even managed outpatient or one night in the hospital six weeks of your usual post-operative recovery back to normal and the narcissistic person kept trying to minimize even how many hours the surgery for the more ill person took in that more severe situation was actually rather upsetting to witness because it was akin to comparing a stubbed toe to a traumatic brain injury and it was really translating into a minimization of the pain of the person with a more severe illness and the psychological trauma and the physical limitations and the rehabilitative demands of the person who went through the far far more massive health crisis this was invalidating to witness and it was even dangerous for the person who went through the massive surgery because adequate allowances were not being made for healing and the expectations that the person who had the massive surgery were not realistic like that they'll be able to pop right back to normal so that means that the narcissistic person might be more likely to get angry at the person with the long recovery period for not just popping back to normal life as they did at the narcissist did after their minor surgery i have witnessed this health minimization dynamic happen to many clients of mine who had cancer or other life-threatening diseases complicated pregnancies and deliveries and narcissistic partners and family members would minimize the experiences of the people with those health crises and frankly that significantly complicated the healing for those folks and in some cases their outcomes and it left massive psychological scars that another person even when directly witnessing their physical deterioration were unwilling to validate and take notice of the suffering that the other person endured minimization also results in other invalidating and confusing moments any difficult human experience someone may have or grief a broken heart a massive professional disappointment a failed exam a loss all of these experiences which if they had happened to the narcissist the narcissistic person would be throwing a tantrum and expect the earth to stop spinning for them but when it happens to the other person in the narcissistic relationship the nurse they will often find themselves being told hey come on it's not that big a deal come on people get over this stuff you're just taking it too seriously this can happen with narcissistic parents in particular and people raised by narcissistic parents will have childhoods that were characterized by parents who minimized everything leaving them going into adulthood not even having a gauge for how to manage disappointment and sadness or even illness when you go through something real and are having a real reaction to it and then someone minimizes it it really does interrupt the grief and the healing process minimization is also the enablers game i have a theory on this i sometimes think the enablers minimize because of their childish need for everything to just be okay even if that means letting the narcissist off of the off the hook in fact typically it means letting the narcissist off the hook again something i am observing very clearly like in this familial situation i'm witnessing when a person who's very ill and will require permanent massive life changes i'm getting the message that like hey look how great they're doing they're just getting better so fast now the people making these observations are often people who don't want to show up and aren't actually directly witnessing the person who has had the massive health problem but they want to weigh in but they don't want to deal with the fallout of the bigger and the more disruptive decisions that need to be made on behalf of the sicker person it's as though having to see the situation realistically would be too painful for them so they minimize minimization by enablers is probably the central pillar of collective gas lighting whenever that idea that when everyone jumps on the bandwagon it says oh come on it's not that bad effectively shutting down the person or the people who are suffering and struggling in a narcissistic relationship because if everyone is saying oh it's not that bad and look how great it's going the people on the receiving end of the narcissistic abuse may actually feel like they're exaggerating and there's that self gaslighting again in many ways i think minimization is a major reason narcissism has become such a big problem in our culture overall journalists other people with platforms mental health practitioners just about everyone tends to minimize the impact of the patterns that we see in narcissism and the fallout on our mental health in family court and human resource in society at large it tends to be the it can't be that bad or you're making too much of it or i'm sure things aren't that bad for you or this is how relationships are or using minimizing language like oh they're just intense or quirky or demanding rather than using the simple word abuse that captures the reality when the damaging impacts of narcissism on other people are minimized by the entire world you end up where we are right now in a world that is that is an absolute uncivil entitled mess all these this minimization it takes a toll people in narcissistic relationships when they minimize what's happening to them all of that stress has to go somewhere lots of survivors blame themselves for being too dramatic or making a mountain out of a molehill there's a proverb but over time as the narcissistic abuse continues and the person keeps minimizing we can see anxiety symptoms health problems even panic attacks by denying reality to themselves i can promise you this that reality will always find another way to come back and bite you now not all minimizers are enablers or narcissists some simply feel so helpless and powerless that by minimizing they can cope with the situation where they feel unable to help another person or do something to be able to fix a situation if you are in a chronically abusive relationship people may see the abusive patterns and recognize that there are reasons it cannot change but they still may try to soft pedal it to make themselves feel better about it and to push down those feelings of helpless discomfort that doesn't make it okay i get it but people in pain as most people going through narcissistic abuse are sometimes want someone to just sit in the pain with them and acknowledge that it's awful and perhaps unchangeable as a therapist it's the hardest part of my job to just sit with the pain of a client and not want to just fix it and the helplessness of watching a narcissistic relationship can often contribute to a person who is in one of these relationships getting more and more isolated nobody often wants to talk to them because it evokes so much powerlessness so people just stop calling most survivors of narcissistic abuse are there they know that these patterns are unchangeable they aren't expecting anyone to wave a magic wand sometimes survivors of narcissistic abuse just want to hold someone's hand in the darkness as they begin to recover we don't talk enough about minimization when we talk about narcissistic abuse because i think it's important to do so because it impacts people in every way in these relationships people tend to minimize what's happening in their own narcissistic relationships as well it's why we don't talk about it and the narcissists always minimize the harm that they do to other people and the difficulties that other people have in their lives the people around you minimize it and the world at large minimizes it so everyone's minimizing it and all of this minimization is one of the brightest and the hottest parts of the gas light i see what it is it's a way for other people to not deal with the big problem that's in front of all of us and while i understand why people may want to cope by denying the magnitude of a problem they cannot fix the damage of minimization to a person who is in a narcissistically abusive relationship and cannot trust their reality is massive like i said i'm in a tough situation right now in my life so i'm right there with all of you and minimization is happening around me left right and center it has really put a finer point on how destructive this is and i recognize it takes a lot of courage goodness and wisdom for a person to hear another person's story of narcissistic abuse and not minimize it but just be with it if you are going through narcissistic abuse it's always my reminder please let know please know that this is real stop minimizing what is happening to you if you're watching someone else go through it never minimize their experience just be with them once we turn off the gas lights we need people who hold the lights to help us get out of these dark spaces so i hope that gives you an understanding that minimization isn't just sort of one sort of side little theme it's actually very central to understanding narcissistic abuse and the impact it's having on you and sometimes having this framework can really really help thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 164,322

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Id: qBHpaaK08kE

Length: 15min 16sec (916 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 07 2022