How Narcissists Use Humiliation And How You Can Respond

[Music] i want us to go into a space today that's rather difficult to examine and that's the space of humiliation and specifically how narcissists feel not only okay about taking you to a place of humiliation but they actually seem to take delight in doing so has that ever happened to you you know one of the things that i worked so hard in my counseling office to uh to help people understand is i want them to know that there's core decency that they have i want them to know that they are deserving of love we were meant to be loved and and let's make sure that we know how to give and receive love but these individuals can sometimes be engaging with uh narcissists who think love you don't deserve any love you deserve to be humiliated now see let's let's understand something every one of us has done something that leaves us feeling guilty like i wish i hadn't done that or that was a bad decision or i wasn't thinking right then and all of us can come up with some things sometimes small sometimes larger and sometimes something in between we've done something that requires a reaction of guilt or shame and in its best sense guilt can cause us to say this is what was wrong this is how i went in a direction that i regret and then here's what i'm going to do to make restoration and then once you've gone through that process you get to move on you get to act like a forgiven person and you we say live and learn you live and you learn well narcissists grew up with an understanding that guilt and shame and demeaning and pecking order is all a really big deal and but instead of them saying well what i'm going to do is i'm going to learn from these kind of things and i'm going to figure out how i can take my guilt and my shame and then go back to that that core that base of love and goodness they don't know how to do that they figured out okay if i do anything wrong then i'm going to be guilted or i'm going to be shamed so how do i overcome that and then they have their little moment of they think clarity is like i know what i'll do is i'll find people who are lower than me and so they go about the the business of making other individuals feel lower so they can elevate themselves at your expense narcissism is so about compensation for being inadequate and and they can't access that insight to save their life but that's what they're really doing they've grown up deeply conflicted they grow up with a lot of fear uh they have the sense that says judgment is always right around the corner and so they're wanting to be the one that's at the front of the the marching band leading the way saying well i'm going to call the shots and people are going to do as i say because they're afraid that uh that if they have to receive any kind of shame and all the rest they're gonna lose their status and so like no what i'll do is i'll build my status at your expense now the word humiliation actually comes from a latin root that means dirt and and basically when somebody is uh is trying to humiliate you they're trying to bring you down to a dirt level you know that's where we come up with the term i'm going to treat you like dirt basically when we talk about humiliating it means that you're trying to bring injury to another person's dignity and their self-respect and you're trying to create a feeling of powerlessness in other individuals now again i want you to stop and think the the narcissists that you've been around have they ever done anything like this now i i want to uh to to take you through multiple illustrations of how narcissists will attempt to shame you let's keep in mind that that one of the things that well when i say shame and humiliate you one of the things that's most common in the way they do it is not only do they shame you privately but they actually want to publicly make sure that others know of whatever defects you have and of course they're going to grossly misrepresent you and that's part of the humiliation the you know humiliation is uh the result of them publicly exposing what they think should be your shame so i'm going to go through these and i want you to see if any of these are relative are relevant in your life and and then we're going to figure out what we're going to do about this for example when when narcissists go into their humiliation mode uh first things first they try to turn the relationship into a domination contest i'm gonna dominate you they can offer overt rudeness and insults they can ignore your reasonable requests and your reasonable needs they can give you glares and stairs they can refuse to acknowledge your physical preferences you don't even exist to me sometimes they might withhold money or helpfulness or just common courteousness they can mock your preferences and they can make fun of your your unique interests they can draw attention to failures and especially in doing so they want to demean you and make you look foolish in public with other individuals they can show favoritism toward others but then when the same favoritism is is due to you it's like no they'll withhold it they can they can demand loyalty and they can demand your affirmation and then when they uh when they decide that you have not given that to them sufficiently they'll withhold any kind of favors when that loyalty is not offered they can go into rages especially when they're in private with you and then in public they can shun you and they can can make it make it uh very clear as far as i'm concerned you are a nobody when you and i are out among other individuals i don't want people to think well of you at all they can make jokes at your expense they can offer sarcastic remarks about you and toward you they can want your failures to be made known in public they can they can talk you into cooperation with some of their pet projects uh you know promising various kinds of rewards and then they don't give you the reward they back out they can undercut your authority let's say if it's in parenting or at work or let's say you have a leadership role in some sort of organization they'll do what they can to undercut your authority they can deny privileges i mean that's a long list and that's a lot of different things that these individuals can do and you look at that and and i'm guessing that many of you who are listening to me right now can think oh i've had so many of those things happen to me and then you could probably add more things to the list and that's it's pitiable and then when you look at the narcissist and you think why do you feel the need to humiliate someone first of all they'll probably say i'm not humiliating you you brought your demise onto yourself and they they completely deny any kind of of ownership to what's going on and then they flip it around and make it your problem and then uh in addition they just kind of have this hotting attitude that says i don't think you got the memo i'm better than you i'm superior to you and when you slow down and look at uh at these kinds of behaviors that i just described and and you try to think what kind of person would feel the need to do that the the answer is a very broken person you know if if there are some things about you that have not gone well i'm i'm hoping that that person that's that's in your presence would say how may i know you better what's the back story you know what can you and i do so that we can move forward and have healing here that's the healthy way of doing things narcissists never really receive that kind of message at all and then you would like to think that they not having received it that they would like to experience it in their adult years but instead it's like oh i'm just going to perfect the the superior role nobody's going to get away with anything negative in my presence and then what makes humiliation so powerful is that it's done in a way that neutralizes any defense that you might try to offer it's kind of like a well if i speak up and talk about you know what the real truth is then the the humiliating narcissist and their flying monkeys or the people that they've influenced may come along and say i don't know if that defense sounds very legitimate or not because the narcissist has done such a good job of running into the ground their their humiliation is meant to create trauma these individuals they know what they're doing it's called abuse by the way now they won't call it that way but they want you to feel traumatized because that keeps you very much in a beneath kind of situation when you are on the receiving end of their humiliating behavior many times the people who are witnessing to this don't know how to put this into context and so they don't really know how to interpret you and many times you don't have the availability to sit down and talk things through with those other individuals who are buying into the narcissist propaganda and then it can leave you feeling ostracized and alone and sometimes you ask is there anyone out there that gets me you know i think that one of the most insidious things that a person can do is when they feel like they have to build themselves up at someone else's expense but that's what these narcissists will do now i'm going to pull out a an old uh this is a very familiar eleanor roosevelt quote and she says no one can make you feel inferior without your consent when we ask you what is it that we can do when we've been on the humiliating end of a narcissist behavior really it comes down to one very very large issue and that is character you know the narcissists want to to give the impression to anyone who will listen that your character is rotten that your character is no good but you see rather than listening to what the narcissist has to say and they may wield some influence we'll acknowledge that i want you to ask yourself a very poignant question and that is what do you believe about you and i'm hoping that there's going to be a mindset that says well um remember my my mantra dr c drc stands for dignity respect and civility i'm hoping that you can have the mindset that says i honestly believe in the dignity of humanity including me i honestly believe that people deserve respect including myself and my self-respect honestly believe that it's it's reasonable to treat people with civility starting within myself and i'm hoping that even as you make mistakes or even as you have some of that guilt and all that we mentioned right at the beginning there's a there's a notion that says my character takes me to a place of growth i don't feel the need to humiliate others uh we're gonna acknowledge that part of your humanity is that you are a mistake maker but the the true mark of good character is the ability to get back up and to say i'm growing i'm learning and i'm going to give other individuals the benefit of my life lessons in such a way where we can have a sense of of being there with one another and for one another narcissists can't think that way but i want you and i'm hoping that you can anchor on your good character and you can anchor down on your self-dignity your self-respect and civility toward yourself that's a gift that no narcissist can or should take away from you i do hope that you get good insight from videos such as this i know sometimes these uh these topics can be difficult and there might be times when you might want to look up someone who can help you with counseling this is something that i've devoted my entire life to and if there's someone in your area that could help you with that then i would encourage you to do so if you don't have that availability i've vetted a group and we have a link below to some people that can help you with online counseling and right now that's very popular i've received good feedback from the system that we have there and so if that's something you would avail yourself to i really want you to get to a place where you have that that good inner sense of character and that good belief in who you are in addition we have our other websites uh surviving narcissism.tv dr lescarter.com if you've not already done so i'd encourage you to subscribe too i forgot to mention that we also have links to our videos video workshops and books and all etc narcissists they want to humiliate but in the end that's much more of a commentary about who they are and where they're coming from i want you to hold on to your sense of decency and goodness and in doing so i'd like for you to be able to go to your place of peace you deserve peace

Channel: Surviving Narcissism

Views: 432,843

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Id: 9nnqBlzpb1U

Length: 14min 25sec (865 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 15 2020