PROTECT YOURSELF! Narcissists Will Use These Secret Weapons AGAINST YOU! | Dr. Ramani

today on women of impact the licensed clinical psychologist dr remini is in the hot seat and revealing exactly what not to do when you come face to face with a narcissist you don't want to serve up your pain to somebody who's going to melt it into bullets and why it can be incredibly harmful and i have watched people be destroyed having people take those vulnerabilities they shared with someone and having them be used against them in all kinds of terrible ways whether it's a narcissistic partner parent or friend today's guest a professor of psychology a distinguished speaker and a sought after expert with appearances on red table talk cnn oprah forbes and new york times to name a few breaks down exactly why having it out with them is the worst idea possible when you're having an argument with a narcissistic person or whatever it is email battle or text battle whatever they don't pause they reload and instead guides us on exactly what we should do instead don't defend don't engage don't explain and don't personalize oh that was a ton of bricks right there so guys get ready as we're about to dive in the deep end of the narcissistic pool whoa girl that was so fire with today's swim instructor the notorious narcissist expert herself dr remini welcome back to the show so nice to see you and see you i know so i'm so happy to be back you are honestly back by popular demands girl oh good people were hounding me when are you going to get back on the show the first time we sat together and we spoke about what a narcissist was we really broke it down in detail and the one thing i got a lot from that interview is when you know that someone is now a narcissist how do you communicate with them do you leave them do you break up with them what if it's a parent what if it's a partner so i was like all right you've got to come back and i want to go deep and so i started watching your content and one of the videos you said that really hit me and this is where i want to start how as kids we're taught sticks and stones may break your bones but words can never hurt and how that has set us up as adults for utter disaster yes it has i'm so glad you picked that video because it was interesting you know sticks and stones can break my bones words will never hurt me i'm thinking words are what's hurting people more than the sticks and stones i think some people feel like beat me with a stick but please stop stop criticizing me stop undermining me stop invalidating me i could handle that other piece and obviously we don't want either but we underestimate the harm words can do and what ends up happening is when a person is getting chronically emotionally and verbally abused or like i said gaslighted invalidated in a relationship a lot of times they don't get empathy or support from other people they say oh come on it's not like they're beating you up oh come on it's not like they're you know doing this like something physical and i'm thinking this is the stuff that breaks a psyche and because you can't a broken psyche doesn't look like a bruise or a black eye but rather it's a far deeper wound it gets missed so yeah you better believe words hurt you in fact that's how people get injured as children that's how people get injured in the workplace certainly in their intimate relationships in their family relationships ninety percent of the time it's words god yeah when i heard you say that i was like wow it's so true because if someone sees a bruise immediately oh my god and you said yes they've been beating me 100 someone's gonna act on it try and help you or you hope but when it comes to words like you said you get dismissed absolutely so let's talk about then the words that narcissists do use and how to respond to them do you respond to them how to walk away and how to handle those situations let's take a partner okay so the challenge here becomes lisa is that it's almost like we have to start at a foundational level right people have to respect and believe in their own reality and respect and belief in themselves because otherwise you're vulnerable to someone's words right when they're going at you they're telling you you're incompetent you don't know what you're talking about that never happened you know who do you think you are and all this other stuff that leaves a person feeling like they're not enough or that maybe that other person is right not them so all of that is foundational work that most people never do then you're in this relationship where somebody is speaking to you in these sort of dismissive gaslighty manipulative sorts of ways there's a moment and this is the challenge is that for months if not years people believe what that person is saying to them they actually believe that they're all those bad things or they're not enough or they're asking too much or whatever it is whatever their their partner's going after them for but there's a moment when it's a penny drop moment maybe it's a someone's gaslighted you they've completely denied your reality and on a strange day you actually record it and you play it back you're like no i did hear it right and then over time you start saying my reality is actually right and one of the things i say i give all i get i use this a lot in my teaching about narcissism i call it the deep technique and deep stands for don't defend don't engage don't explain and don't personalize and if you can hold on to those four rules which are not simple rules they're hard rules but don't defend don't engage don't explain don't personalize don't defend is when somebody is saying you did something and you didn't do it don't defend it there's no point you know because now what happens is you start going down the rabbit hole and the don't engage part really means that you pull back quite a bit you recognize that i'm always walking on eggshells no matter how i say this i get it wrong and they don't personalize pieces this is them it's not you and especially the don't personalize peace that's hard for people to think it's got to be me and i'm like no it's not you if anything you're so empathic that you're easy to take advantage of because they know you're going to keep coming back so having those four simple rules and those would apply to any kind of relationship i also tell people it's incredibly important to have other voices in your life other supports whether that's friends colleagues family members whoever your people are what you start seeing is that all these other people are saying i'm solid i'm good i'm kind i'm competent one person only is saying these things you know and which side you're going to go on and what makes it harder is if people heard these negating messages in childhood so because then the narcissistic partner comes along and they're basically reinforcing these messages of i'm not enough from childhood that's a very that that cycle of defending and rationalizing someone who's saying you're not enough something we call trauma bonding you actually justify the narcissistic person and that's a cycle that started in childhood the child doesn't have an option the parent they got their parent they got so they will justify that and so a lot of it is about no longer doing the dance let's face it lisa a lot of people can't leave these relationships for reasons of kids money culture religion and i never discount those reasons those reasons are very real and it's not for someone say well you just gotta get out when you say that to people they say well i can't get out so this all feels helpless and hopeless i'd written a book called should i say or should i go and i wrote that book because i know about half of people stay sometimes because they have to sometimes because they haven't hit their rock bottom in it whatever their reason is so you don't have to rationalize your reason to me let's give you tools to stay and that's the things like don't over engage don't defend yourself don't go down the rabbit hole see that this is their sort of very limited ability their lack of empathy their entitlement it's not yours you're good and by doing that sometimes people can find the workarounds it's not good for a person i mean in the long run i think it's probably healthier to step away but that's just not an option people don't want to step away from relationships all the time oh girl that was so funny so i want to go deep on the deep thing and so in those moments when you say don't defend at least for me i remember i didn't defend because i was weak because i was insecure so i didn't have the confidence to defend myself and so as i started to build my confidence i started go no defending yourself is you know stands up for yourself right so in what you're saying is don't defend i actually get why but how do you reconcile then right the i'm doing it because it's the right thing versus am i not defending am i not speaking up for myself right and that right there is one of the biggest tricky bits here because people say i feel like i've become a doormat and i'm kind of giving in i said but here's the it's it becomes strategic it becomes intentional this isn't about capitulating this isn't about being a doormat this is about saying i'm not getting into i'm not going to do this toxic dance with this person because in essence lisa when you get into that toxic dance with somebody who has a really antagonistic narcissistic personality you're giving them exactly what they want they want to get in the mud i'm telling people don't get in the mud defending oneself when for example they're misheard or misunderstood in a healthy relationship is totally appropriate so a person says hey da da why don't you say listen i put all the papers on your desk on the deadline you didn't get to them i get that but i did do this and in a healthy relationship person say oh my goodness yes you did i'm so sorry appropriate okay what gets challenging with the narcissistic relationships in our lives is you almost have to have two sets of strategies one set of strategies you maintain in your healthy relationship and a different toolkit in the narcissistic relationships so you need to know when to engage and when not to engage and i call that discernment it's discerning how to be with the healthy folks and how to be with the unhealthy folks two sets of tools you would not take a tennis racket to go play baseball that's such good advice okay so let's assume that somebody is either with a narcissist or has someone in their lives and i know that you have almost like certain rules that you advise people so there's one phrase that you use which is um don't give your psychological passwords to them i love that can you talk to me about it yeah so it's actually brilliant again i always i want to make sure that so many of this so much of this is accumulated wisdom was actually somebody i've worked with who said to me instead of calling it gray rocking why don't you call it firewall like somebody who works in the tech industry and i thought interesting say more and we talked about it and her husband's a big tech guy and and we find i said this is you're absolutely brilliant because when you think about a firewalled computer right it's very restrictive on what it lets in right it'll say this is this is a virus don't let this in and it's also very restrictive on what you let out like you know and they'll even ask you are you sure i say don't part of firewalling is you know i don't give you all my passwords i adore you but i wouldn't give you all my passwords right right yes exactly and so we don't hand we're so we're literally more protective of the password we have for some game on our computer than we are with the most sacred parts of our psyche like what you know i mean that doesn't even make but that's it doesn't make sense but everyone does that they just hand it over and so this idea is that you wouldn't just give away your normal passwords don't give away your psychological passwords your deep vulnerabilities your because i'll tell you why they'll use them against you narcissistic people will always weaponize your vulnerabilities so a lot of times early in a relationship people open up and they share their vulnerabilities something that's really really sinister about narcissistic relationships is during that love bombing phase to look at someone and say tell me tell me the thing you least like about yourself and you're like oh we're sharing they're putting that in some sort of evil vault in their brain that then when either you're in the devaluing cycle or the discarding cycle you're having an argument they'll pull that vulnerability out it could be about anything could be about body image it could be about something that happened to you in childhood it could be about your family a dream you have and they will use it against you and for a lot of people it feels like the air has been sucked out of them the most vulnerable thing that a person could share they've shared with them and it's like in fact in in a cult structure it's often called collateral like it's like i'm we're gonna get we've got to get something from them so we can almost blackmail someone down the road it's like that maybe not at that level but it's it's that ability to say now i've got something on you so i know i can hurt you and so that's what i mean about don't hand away your psychological passwords don't give away those most vulnerable parts of yourself until someone really gains that trust people might be sitting there saying well doesn't that are you telling people not to be vulnerable oh absolutely not i'm saying learn your people again it's that two sets of ways of engaging in the world and it's about taking a moment to get to know someone if red flags are coming up pay attention and hold back you will get to the vulnerabilities if this is a healthy person you'll get there but you don't need to get there in the first week but i think so many people want to be heard and seen and understood that they rush to that moment like let me tell them everything and now we're in love and i have watched people be destroyed having people take those vulnerabilities they shared with someone and having them be used against them in all kinds of terrible ways yeah i very much believe that vulnerability should never be weaponized in absolute situations but i do understand that other people accidentally may use a vulnerability in a heated moment and then regret it so is it how they then handle it afterwards that it takes which i'm not asking anyone to hear to be superhuman you know we've all done it you've done i've done it in a moment you know said something and say oh my goodness it is that very rapid attempt at making amends doing the reparations and not doing it again right you see what i'm saying so you can't just keep doing it because one thing narcissistic relationships often consist of is the apologize cycle it's like the rinse lather repeat like apollo i'm sorry and they do it again i'm sorry do it again i'm sorry no i mean i'll give you one you know saying i never should have said something like that then don't do it again and when they do it again it feels like then i'm sorry it's just like a get out of jail free card like okay i'm just going to use this again and so it really it it's it's the intent and it's how quickly the reparations take place that a person immediately says i had no no place doing that and i got to tell you lisa in some cases there are no fly zones like i you know i'm a parent for example you say anything to me you go after my kids we're done and when i work with clients i tell them it's okay to have those no-fly zones it's because some say i'm being too extreme right i'm like oh do i really shut someone off you i said you're okay with doing that if they went to a place that feels sacred to you that feels untouchable to you and it went there that's abuse that's a violation of a primal boundary it's okay to say never again does that apply to everyone in your life like your parents as well as a partner it gets tricky there lisa because i think especially if you had a narcissistic parent one of the most painful legacies of a narcissistic parent is that they do they will use those vulnerabilities against a child one thing i've classically heard with narcissistic parents and their children is they go after appearance they go after weight they go after how someone looks they um because it is a superficial personality style right and they often want their child to be a reflection of how they want to be in the world and if it may not be straightly appearance it might even be things like inability it might be things like soccer or school or whatever it may be right and so in those cases the parent knowing that the child struggles with whatever will actually use that as a way to manipulate the child or get the child to do what they want and then the child sort of lives in this sadness like or they'll try to be what the parent wants them to be the kiddo's like if i could play tennis really well my parent would pay attention and maybe there's just not a natural tennis player and then the child really goes out and tries to hit a tennis ball or whatever and then the parents like really like you want me to waste my time playing tennis with you like this is way below me thinking like oh my gosh this poor kid's killing themselves to get you to notice them but this will fast forward into adulthood they will continue to do this to their child in adulthood parents are tricky narcissistic parents are tricky because a lot of people for example may love one parent and really have had a difficult other parent some people will feel as though i really had a difficult parent but i love my siblings i love my grandparents so and those other people in the system don't want you to distance from that one parent i always say to people once you identify the difficult people in the system you can still be in that system but you've got to be mindful so it really does about maybe limiting the time finding time away from the narcissistic parent to be with those other people like your grandparent or your sibling or your other parent or whatever and also to recognize you were the child they were the parent they dropped the ball it's not your job to go back there and teach them and i think a lot of people contin i've seen 50 year old people still be hoop jumping to get and trying to show off for a parent no different than a six-year-old trying to juggle in the living room just to get their parents to notice them it doesn't stop but the hurt that a narcissistic parent can inflict on an adult child is just as potent as if that person was five years old have you noticed a correlation between people that have had narcissistic parents that then go for a narcissistic partner yeah there's an incredible vulnerability and i talk about this i talk about people who sort of are narcissism magnets without knowing it like and one of the things on that list of magnets is exactly what you're saying having had come from a system characterized by this there's a couple of reasons one of the most intoxicating tragically intoxicating things a person can experience is familiarity when we say oh we have a magical connection and i'm having a deja vu i kind of put my head in my hand saying no no no no this is not good for you because the things that are familiar to you are actually quite toxic and poisonous and that sort of familiarity of for example it's something we call working through i couldn't win over my narcissistic father but i'm going to win over this guy ah right and so then they go right into that same cycle and because it's so familiar it's almost hard to get that that that view to say this isn't healthy for me or to get out because the whole life almost becomes this activity of trying to get this to trying to do all the things i'm going to jump through the hoops i'm going to win this time and a lot of times people will convince themselves like if i can get it right here then it'll be okay then i would i would have you know sort of figured out what i needed to figure out from childhood but the fact of the matter is this adult narcissistic person is going to treat you as badly as your narcissistic parent and this time it's going to get uglier because it'll be things like the gaslighting and the manipulation and the rage and for some people that inner dialogue i'm not enough i'm not good enough i um i have no right to be doing this who am i to be pursuing my dreams i need to stay in my lane all of that stuff that kind of inner dialogue when it gets reinforced by a partner people actually really get stuck in relationships that's what i was going to say you just listed a few um can you repeat those actually and what are the things that essentially interesting it never dawned on me that this is the language we say to ourselves i'm not enough what are you doing stay in your lane is that the same language and a narcissist would also say to you as like a red flag you stay in your lane absolutely they say stay in your lane you should and you know what it is it's a it's more they do it more masterfully than that they plant just enough of a seed of doubt that you're the one who ends up cultivating that seed so they'll say things like really that job like okay you know i get why you'd want to do it but you sure that's not you getting ahead of yourself so it's just enough like okay go ahead and do it but you sure about that that's the kind of thing that they'll do so now this thing you thought you could do already they've put this new seat of doubt in there are saying you know things like well i don't know other people at that job they seem to have gone to some really fancy universities like it's cool that they want you but you sure about that and then for many people that's when they'll give up on themselves yeah can you actually truly be happy in a narcissistic relationship because not sharing your vulnerabilities with someone not listening when they give you advice because you don't trust them because you're worried that they're trying oh you sure you should go for that job like i really want to be able to take my husband's advice for true advice and so not being able to share that not being able to um i've heard you say that um not to share your wins with your not your wins not your losses and not your vulnerabilities don't share any of them okay so i want to go down that actually not sharing the wins but um if you don't mind like can you actually then truly be happy such it's such an it's almost a philosophical question isn't it right i don't know that a person would ever be fully happy or satisfied or nourished in that relationship i have seen people amazingly so figure out workarounds where they derive i don't know joy from their kids their pets their hobbies their jobs their other supports in their world if provided the narcissistic person in their life isn't super controlling obviously all of that gets very difficult if the narcissistic person has someone on a really sort of a short tie they say like you can't do this you can't do that and really isolates them from their world when that dynamic is in place i do not think it's possible to be happy but if you're in a situation where you're kind of able to do some things that matter to you i've seen people sort of carve out moments of happiness but if this person's a day-to-day fixture in someone's life not so much i mean i do think it takes a toll and i've worked with people who've been in these relationships 30 40 50 years and it hollows them out is that inevitable i do think it's somewhat inevitable how many times are you going to be invalidated how many times is somebody going to walk around in the world and feel completely unmirrored in what is to be a loving relationship and especially if they aren't able to build up those other spaces in their lives some people figure out the workarounds and they recognize like okay this is not what i would have loved for myself or wanted for myself but i will try to make the most out of what i can and then they take almost a very existential point of view this moment's beautiful i'll be in this moment kind of thing and so they do their best at sort of deriving the joy from a given moment here and it's again that's the sort of high level existential work it's hard to do because you look around at other people and they are in love and their partners are appreciative of them and they are in a loving space and their experience has absolutely no resemblance to that they feel very alone and keep in mind lisa most people don't get this i've worked with so many folks who they go out and they're like finally i figured out why this relationship's so difficult my partner is really narcissistic they have no empathy the whole laundry list and people like i don't get that like you look good in pictures together or it seems like you're both at the dinner together and so it's this people not getting it like well it can't be that bad can't you just explain to them what's going on no because they're not listening and that's hard imagine a child child growing up with parents who never see them who never hear them when i say see them like notice them never hear them never have empathy for them never have interest for them a lot of people grow up like that now jump that into an adult relationship it takes a tremendous toll on a child as an adult you're not immune to those same effects especially in what feels like supposed to be your primary close relationship yeah god and how many of people though actually in those 30 40's because you said some people stay like for the rest of their life still try and change them because i i love it when you're like you can't change it but how many people just like yes but if i only did this and is that how much of that is why people stay in those relationships well there's there's kind of a standard there's a short list of reasons people stay in the relationships hope fear guilt and lack of information okay hope that it'll change we've thrown that hope out fear of being alone some people say that the devil i know is better than the angel i don't like they're saying i know this i know how this works i know our respective families i have a routine they're scared they're scared they're scared of living alone they're scared of um having their role in society change or scared of no longer perhaps being in a marriage or something like that then there's guilt remember not all narcissism is just the big exploitative grandiose person likes kind of holding court and sucking all the oxygen out of the room in many cases nurses there's what we call vulnerable narcissism and that's more of this sort of sullen resentful angry victimized form of narcissism so instead of the entitlement coming out as hey i should be the vip in the line the entitlement comes out more as nothing ever works out for me i deserve so much more because i'm such a smart person it makes me sick to watch all these other people succeeding when i'm so much smarter see that's a different feel of entitlement right and no that vulnerable narcissistic style actually takes a tremendous toll in relationships but when people want to leave those relationships they feel really guilty because there is a sort of very anxious depressed feel and then there's lack of information the number of people out there saying well maybe if i just learn to communicate maybe if we go to a couple's retreat maybe if we do this maybe if we do that and i'm like oh my gosh you're about to spend a hundred thousand dollars i'm telling you for free this is not going to change make your decisions accordingly not never telling anyone to leave i'm saying this it's like a person moving to a really hot climate and wanting to wear a down parka i'm like that's not gonna work you're gonna have to get a new wardrobe like the whole this is not what you think it is that's it oh good i love that and i've actually heard you say speaking of the guilt thing um that do never empathize with a narcissist i'm going to put i'm going to push back on that okay because i believe in empathy i think empathy is something that we are losing in this world quickly and yet it is so crucial to me to to actually saving this world literally down to climate change empathy is everything right the biggest thing in fact right now it's actually one of the videos in pre-production we're working on right now is this idea of people feeling like they have been through so much in multiple narcissistic relationships that they're they're starting to lose their empathy across the board in fact there's a name for it it's called uh compassion fatigue that we save that more for health care providers psychologists that kind of thing after a while there's so much empathy you can put out unless there's some coming back in right but compassion fatigue is a little different than just feeling like i'm empathied out like i am being treated badly every day 20 times a day i don't believe truly empathic people lose their empathy i think people get worn out and they get sad and they um they feel more isolated from people but i actually do believe we can have tremendous in fact we must have tremendous empathy for narcissistic people otherwise we lose our we lose the best part of ourselves and i'll be damned if somebody who's toxic is going to be the reason the most beautiful part of myself gets turned off and so and i feel that for everyone do not ever pawn that off but empathy doesn't mean being a sucker empathy is understanding whatever happened in your story that brought you here i am so sorry and i really hope the path forward takes you to a place where you can work on this i really do but not on my time again another brilliant suggestion sent by people who watch the channel and they were basketball fans and i'm a basketball fan too i think it's such an elegant sport and that moment that hang time is that moment when a player is coming up to the hoop and it almost feels like they're flying right before they put the the ball in in the basket and sometimes hang time feels like it's really long like it's almost eternal if you're watching it and they were using hang time as an analogy of that moment you're suspended and trying to figure out like what is this like is this person really toxic is this really a narcissistic kind of personality style like what is happening here and it's when you're continuing to give second chances like maybe i'm reading this wrong or what what's going on here i don't want anyone watching this thinking it's black and white like one day i've got it's a process i always say that there's the click moment there's a moment in your mind you're with some and you're like okay i'm now a little uncomfortable it's often a red flag but it's a little more than red flags by now you've probably seen five 10 even 15 red flags and it is it's like an audible click you're like okay now i'm uncomfortable what do i do at the moment of the audible click people are still saying okay maybe i'm reading this wrong but we're starting to step out of the room backwards like we're creating more and more distance like okay this isn't cool this is not an affiliation i want this is not a relationship i want whatever slowly start stepping away that moment of starting to identify it and then get out that's what's being called hang time here's where it gets tricky if you are the one who decides to leave a narcissistic relationship i can guarantee you it's going to go badly it'll always go badly we don't always realize this but people who are not who have narcissistic difficult personality style struggle with abandonment because it means they've lost control of the narrative so if somebody tries to leave them all hell is going to break loose all hell is going to break loose if they decide to leave you they're just going to go but if you decide to leave them and they don't want you leaving you are in for the fight of your life and this is why it's important to identify and get it out of it get out of it early the earlier you get out the less the harm but if you're in for a while and they don't want out they it will be an absolute mess which is why hang time is an interesting moment because for some people during that suspension they're hanging in there saying how big a mess is this going to be when i leave so some people stay because they're so afraid of the disaster that's going to ensue when they leave and when i work with folks who are about to start for example embark on a divorce from a narcissist i say i'll tell them for as bad as you think this is about to be it is going to be ten times worse we are going to battle and i will not so i will not soften this for you and single time whether it's a marriage whether it's workplace whatever it is it is it almost like these people look shredded when it's over and a couple of them have said i'm so glad i'm out but had i really known how bad this was gonna be i don't know that i would have had the courage to do this okay so how on earth knowing that as humans we move towards pleasure and away from pain how do you encourage may not be the right word but how do you i've got no other word encourage those people where you're like hey look this is about to get really bad really bad but it's going to be worth it in the end yeah i would say with the word i would use a support like you're really supporting a person who goes through this is and i don't even listen i'm going to be almost cynical i don't know that i can guarantee them it's all going to be okay in the end i do believe they're going to be better off without this toxic energy in their life there's actually some interesting data that was collected by a team i work with that's based in israel as a site that calls stuff that works and they actually collected some data on narcissistic abuse and one of the things that they found at the and on their in their data was that no contact like cutting the narcissist off completely is the technique that worked the best for people to heal like no contact like that done we're done like you uh you're not you're contacted all right that finding made me both really happy and really sad made me happy because i'm like okay this works it made me sad because it's a technique not accessible to many people does that make sense not everyone can go no contact for a whole range of reasons and so when you when you really really step back and think about if you've ever known someone who's difficult or toxic when they were out of your life everything got a lot easier there's no way to soft pedal that right and so not getting yelled at not getting screamed at not getting angry emails not getting angry texts not getting angry angry angry and all the other abuse and victimhood and all the other stuff they're piling on right to be away from that anyone is going to be relieved so i'll tell folks i want you to close your eyes and imagine what it would be like to not get messages from them for a week and people almost look like you think you put them on the beach in hawaii they're like oh my gosh i said okay hold that hold that feeling and then um and i'll say but this is the pathway to get get to this okay it's terrifying in some of the in many cases not some many cases people who are leaving narcissistic relationships are terrified there's a whole range of responses to downright stalking and dangerous sort of harassment and stalking all the way down to more of the like petty comments on social media narcissist the narcissistic person calling their friends and family members and kind of almost creating alliances against you it's really it can be really destabilizing for a person who goes through this and will find themselves they're afraid to look at their inbox they're afraid to even they're afraid when their phone rings because they're thinking or pings when there's a text because they're they're anxious about their social media some people go off completely because they're so scared of it it is just it's the relentlessness and someone i know once said it really astutely they said when you're having an argument with a narcissistic person or whatever it is email battle or text battle whatever they don't pause they reload it's like they just they come in and it just even more vitriol coming your way and it never ends like it's middle of the night they're doing it first thing in the morning you're just it doesn't end for folks whereas for most people we're like okay can we just let this go because that abandonment issue as as well as they lost control for narcissistic people it's really important for their ego to always be in control and the idea that someone else is calling the shots does not work for them so are there a few um i assume nothing is universal but are there a few things that someone can do in those moments because going through that journey of leaving someone that's an artist like you said can be you know absolutely painstaking is a certain advice that is somewhat universal that certain people can do in those situations so is it like um so i've heard you say don't tell a narcissist they're a narcissist never never that's a big mistake people will watch my content and say i've got the answer and i'm like no no no never because by the time it's done they would have said they would have convinced you that you're the narcissistic person because they're much better at arguing and how dare you and how dare you use a clinical term but and people will they will either take such a relentless attack or they will doubt themselves and i'll say what's the win on this where is the because if you're doing it to intentionally hurt them that's not good for your soul to intentionally hurt anyone so don't do that if it's to say i figured you out why do they need to get the memo you figured them out make your decisions accordingly because it i've always found that when people have that call them out conversation it always makes a destabilized situation even far far worse i say listen hold on to it as your secret it's like now i have the road map now i can see this clearly i say absolutely not the other piece i tell people is that this is once you come into the revelation that these patterns are really cons well again we talked about it in the previous time i was on the show the lack of empathy the entitlement the grandiosity the arrogance the sensitivity to criticism the constant need for admiration and validation the sense of always being a victim the sense that everyone's out to get them all of those are very classically narcissistic things and patterns once you're pretty clear that this is what you're dealing with no matter what you do it never changes it's always the same however you say it on and on and on you're being manipulated you're being gaslighted and everything you don't need to make a decision immediately a lot of you as well now that he knows i got to go away no get your ducks in line if it's a if it's a workplace situation if it's a divorce you're going to need documentation you need to make sure you have good financial records that many cases money is hidden in fact i'd say in a majority of cases people hide money in these kinds of situations so you need a good attorney it often doesn't always work to do this in a mediation that you actually need an attorney to do the good fight because a narcissistic person will usually try to hijack the mediation and people are so traumatized and so confused by these relationships they're really not in a good position to be their own advocate and so it's if it's a workplace situation you're going to need tons of documentation if you need to file a claim or a grievance or even get out of there and not have it hurt your career in the future so i say make sure you're getting things documented absolutely make sure you're in therapy being supported having a sounding board many people going through this have other mental health issues they're managing depressive symptoms anxiety some may turn to substances to to manage their feelings some may start developing issues around food and eating like there's a whole host of issues we may see people with existing mental health problems may have now an intensification need to be in good therapy to really walk through this to have again to get as much information as you can possibly get and then recognize it's going to be a battle i always tell people you need to write down everything there's actually a technique i give people it's called the ick list an ick as an egg but the ick list is is where you write down every bad thing that's happened in the relationship and the reason i tell people to do this is as they're getting ready to leave or the narcissistic person confuses them so much just having that listen saying when they're having a doubt like well maybe it wasn't that bad or maybe i am going to stay in it they'll read the list and say i can't i forgot this and i forgot that and i sometimes say you might even want to make that ick list with some of your closest people the ones you can trust who say oh do you not remember when he got drunk at your birthday party do you not remember that time he cheated on you when he went to vegas like did you forget these things people don't forget them but denial and the way our brain tries to almost cordon off traumatic memories often leads us to kind of conveniently push them to the side like it's a storage unit where we've forgotten what we've put there and then we're hurtling through on an incorrect set of assumptions oh so you said something i don't interrupt you but how do you get your friends to say that when a lot of people if they go through a breakup they turn to their friends their friends like yeah he's he's terrible you need to leave him oh my god i'm so glad and then they end up not leaving them and now they almost don't talk to the friend because the friend doesn't like the partner and so how do you encourage friends to speak up in those moments remind you of those things because the fear is they're going to come back to you after and be like right i'm staying with them and now i'm not talking to you i'd have a very different kind of a conversation about it and i've actually known a few people who will say as the friend of the person in the narcissistic relationship if they go back i have to cut out of this friendship because i can't watch this anymore it's like watching a horror film they're like i can't watch this anymore um and you know what that friendship will come back together if and when the day comes they ever leave this person but i wouldn't make it about this is such a this is such a bad guy such a bad person make it more about the events oh the at literal episodes and even in that ich list i tell people these are about the episodes that happened in this relationship the things the behaviors not the what a bad person but the you know the inappropriate texts with somebody at work the um you know the constant criticism of your family the [Music] making you know the leaving a really important work event where you were going to get an award early people get this stuff most people don't keep those kinds of journals and by generating that ickless and i i don't disagree with you that if you bring in your friends then you may get mad at your friends well that's something you need to work on your your friends try to do you a proper by saying i don't feel like this is healthy i don't feel like this is good healthy friendships are going to be able to withstand this they really really are they'll say okay i know that you told me this i get while you're staying i love you i'm here and we i can talk about like good people can actually kind of be able to go shape-shift and say if this is what makes you happy i can be here for you and i shared those things with you because i observed them right i could say that i saw this happen that was not an okay thing that is much very different than he's a bad guy yeah it makes such a difference for a hundred percent um in everything we're saying there's a lot of the language the um the narcissist uses and a lot of it is manipulative demeaning um how do you advise people to respond in those moments it's a great question because it's not as simple as somebody says that you get up and walk out of a room right you almost need a transitional phrase the ones i offer are kind of inane they're things like i see got it okay all right um that's hard to hear but okay and just you give a transition say i gotta step out for a little bit or i'm gonna just gonna i'm gonna run to the bathroom or i'm you know i think i think we're good here for now like i'm it's just you're giving a sort of a transitional sign off and get yourself out of that situation imagine you were in a room and somebody was singing swinging a sword around and slashing you up a bit and getting close to you would you stay in that room hell no you'd leave why would it be any different if somebody's saying think of it as someone just swinging this machete or sword at you you would say i got this is not safe for me now you wouldn't may not say to someone this is not safe for me i always really encourage people watch things like your tone watch your volume don't escalate with them don't say how dare you not none of that okay so you almost want to think like a hostage negotiator they don't start screaming at people they actually break to keep their volume really really steady okay like they're trying to talk someone down trying to talk someone out of a crisis and so you keep it steady and you say things like okay what if they've really upset you still just like taking try to get out as soon as possible like take a deep breath because what you don't want them to see is you cry oh save those tears for the bathroom save those tears for the drive you're about to take save those tears for a walk not in front of them why is that they'll weaponize them oh baby baby really you can't take a little thing i am so tired of your disgusting weakness is that what you want to hear when you're crying no no i take get out take your weakness and get out and when i say weakness i don't mean that in a bad way your vulnerability get out of that situation because i think that's the issues you don't want to serve up your pain to somebody who's going to melt it into bullets you don't want to serve up the pain to someone who's going to melt it into bullets how often do we do that and not realize it all the time all the time i think that and this is where we talk about that hope of the narcissistic relationship right i am going to show my pain i am going to sob i'm going to anguish and here's where it gets really confusing in some cases when people fall to their knees and they wail and they sob it's as though that level of if you will degradation is what the narcissistic person wants they do they want it because now it's like to them they're like you're they have contempt for your emotion they're disgusted by you but they're like ugh get up off the floor it's very contemptuous but keep in mind that for some people who are really stuck in these trauma bonded cycles with narcissistic people they may not want out so they're sobbing and wailing on the floor and like oh they didn't kick me out and you can see how this cycle of like almost like showing this almost degraded emotion this humiliating emotion in front of the narcissistic person is like their prize because it keeps you here and them here all you know the the primary motivations of these difficult relationships are the narcissistic or difficult person wants power they want control um they want everything for their own pleasure their own needs and they're almost getting a little bit of enjoyment like hahaha so weak because for them it keeps their because we talked about in that previous episode with you what the core of the narcissistic personality is inadequacy these big feelings of inadequacy and insecurity so anything that brings those inadequacies to the surface brings up a lot of shame for them when they feel shame they rage so if you're wailing on the ground and crying or moaning or sobbing in front of them their inadequacy stuff gets totally pushed into the background because now they feel strong and powerful on your back on your pain is actually being used for them as fuel for their ego that's not healthy yeah so it really is a power dynamic between the two and any time you are either equal above them that's when that is the trigger for them yeah so if there's like let's say you come home and say i got this promotion and because of this promotion we're gonna be making the same amount this is great it doesn't mean like i'm gonna have to commute a little longer that which that's what i was saying remember i think don't share your good news your good news nine times out of ten will trigger the narcissistic person's feeling of inadequacy and then they feel shame and then they rage so is communication does it always then need to be surface level really always always yeah yeah yeah and so where it gets confusing is many people with narcissistic personalities are very smart they'll know a lot about one thing they'll often be well read i mean this is what's so such a confusing style it's a very high functioning dysfunctional personality style right so you'll think you're having a deep conversation with them because you go deep on a topic right you have this deep philosophical conversation with them but it's not really a personal conversation it's almost like a theoretical conversation but then people will confuse that thinking we're having these deep conversations so i'm going to talk about myself my stuff my story well that's what they want you to do again they're going to use those vulnerabilities against you down the road but it's not a deep conversation now sometimes the narcissistic person will tell you what are saying are vulnerable things about them to draw your vulnerabilities out either theirs aren't true so you've been kind of given a sham vulnerability if you will or a um a thing they know and people confuse that because the conversation will go on for hours and hours or they'll share a lot about their dreams and their aspirations right like i'm going to be at this and i'm going to do with that it's all very grandiose which feels sherry right right yeah so if i was you know i was sharing hey you know lisa i'm excited i want to do this this that and the other and you'd say i don't think that's really going to be very possible that's often what the narcissist so if you sometimes if you would ever give them that feedback they'd lose it but if you share your dreams they will often give you that feedback just as they're going on about their whole grandiose prancing about talking i'm going to do this and i'm going to do that so then you feel emboldened to share your dreams and they'll laugh at yours i was literally about to ask you what's the difference about someone just kind of warning you like oh you may want to be careful because sometimes i think people warning you of something is like okay there might be some gems in here they might actually be right and there might be a warning here of like oh you may be careful there so i was going to ask how do you know when someone's genuinely cares about you and is warning you because they care about you versus warning you because you make them feel bad and i think you just answered because you said they laugh at you they'll and they'll have contempt for it like oh please you know versus wow you know i've actually worked in that industry and one thing i would actually highly recommend is that you know that's such a cool idea however i do have a concern that if you do it this way and they're good pieces of guidance even though you might think like what they're saying is probably not realistic i don't think it's anyone's place out there to piss all over someone else's dreams now unless they want to hire a consultant to do that and then that's a different that's a financially brokered kind of a relationship right but the idea that um if somebody shares with you especially in a new friendship or a new intimate space you're probably not the person who should be doing that but it is the contempt that's the ringer yeah that word really hits me um so what do you do in those moments because again it just feels really shitty you've just shared your dream with someone i'm going to do this i'm so excited and they're like oh god what do you know i go back to like i want to almost talk to them like um discuss it or like try and persuade them there's no point talking to someone contemptuous if we could convince everyone that your dreams your aspirations are sacred spaces within you why would you put that sacred space in front of somebody who's having contempt for it it's sacrilegious right if you want to put it that way it's a really divine important part of you and to recognize they're not able to be present with this i need to find a more worthy audience that this is not the person to because you will never convince them because baiting is a huge part of the narcissistic relationship dynamic they want the fight you know they're prized fighters they they know how to fight the rest of us really kind of don't and so they will bait you they will be like really do you think that's going to happen or like come on now boy you sure do like to talk about yourself when you're not even a person who likes to talk about themselves but someone else at a gathering might say and i remember this happening to me once in the presence of a narcissistic person i was at a gathering and i'm not i'm not going to be the ones going to yammer on about herself it's not my way and then somebody said hey i saw you doing this cool thing can you talk a little bit about it and i was like oh sure you know i was playing it i'm like oh it's nothing and interestingly as i was just about to share it someone who is quite narcissistic in that room said oh here we go getting to hear from her and i was hurt like it hurt and i said yeah it's not that big a deal like i'm just going there and i'm doing this thing blah blah blah so i minimized it because i was not at all going to give that that narcissist was looking for the fight later in that event i got that person one-on-one and say i love i i'd be happy to share with you what i'm going to do the big question becomes lisa is in a milieu like that in a situation like that do people notice that whole dance right watching someone get shut down by somebody who's so antagonistic and i went with it i did not say wait a minute there's about i didn't i was no that's debating you don't take the fight because they want you to take the fight right i'm looking i am not giving you the satisfaction because me taking the bait is you getting your validation and that is not happening on my watch but that also takes confidence in that moment yeah you know what it's not a big deal and confidence because you're not demeaning yourself right right like you know having known you as much as i do now it's like i know that you it's freaking awesome like what you're doing and but because sometimes it's i think it's dangerous when you say oh what i'm doing isn't that big a deal right right i think yeah it can be and it can affect your self-talk and unfortunately that is my self-talk it's like i'm not i'm not all that i'm not that important i'm not that valuable that's very much my because i've i've been i mean you don't do what i do without having been through you know this this narcissistic territory and being hurt by people like this more than a few times so my tendency is to not be like oh all right great i'm doing all this stuff so in that situation when that happened actually a bit of hurt got activated in me but at the same time i have my toolbox and i think i'm not giving this i'm not taking this person's bait but i did know that the person who asked the original question was genuinely interested so when i got private time with her i said you know what now that it's just the two of us i'd love to share with you more about what i'm doing and just do it that way thank you for sharing that because that's actually really beautiful to hear that you know even when you know everything you know doesn't mean that you don't get triggered doesn't mean it doesn't all the time doesn't mean that it doesn't actually go i still get played girl i get old i played all the time i just got played recently like i get played and i get played hard like and i realize like how romney are you getting played this far into the game and i know what it is it's a when i view somebody as i for lack of a better way when i feel bad for them does that almost pity i guess maybe that's the word when i pity someone i do tend to keep trying even when i'm feeling red flags and that's something i've got to work on because it's actually trying to take care of people i pity has actually resulted in me getting harmed so i am very i have to catch that one and if i sense that somebody's sort of pitiful to me i've got to cut bait because that has gotten me into probably most of the really horrible narcissistic situations not all of them but a lot of them they it pulls for pity there's something almost pitiful and pathetic and they're trying too hard and they're often not good at what they're doing like because i was that person right i was once the kid who just wasn't always that good and i would have loved it if somebody you know would have had my back so i think it's i think we're also a lot of us spend a lot of our lives trying to rescue the childlike versions of ourselves our child versions and when we see it manifested in someone i think we want to rescue before we catch ourselves and say i'm not a child i'm an adult i got her i got my child version and i don't need to let pity be what drives a human relationship oh that was a ton of bricks right there because [Music] again like i even myself are looking like you know so much you're so knowledgeable on this subject i bet you never get tricked by not i bet you literally they walk around like a big red dot and you see them so it's actually beautiful and wonderful that you said that yeah because i i really do think that it's never one and done even when we like anything like anything partners spotting all of this we're talking about and i think that that's important to know because i do worry that some people beat themselves up over going yeah i can't believe i ended up with a narcissist again i've watched all her videos and i'm still falling in this trap so like you even saying that i think just gives grace to other people absolutely there's so much shame and self-blame in this space like the number of folks who've said to me i am so embarrassed and humiliated that i let this happen i'm saying something you're blaming yourself for someone harming you and so for people i should have known they said no because you got to remember we carry this whole map of our lives inside of us and that map isn't always good it's like i think every one of us our our compasses are a little bit off right because of the things the bad things have happened to us the hurts we've incurred so we don't don't always get to make the we don't we don't always make the best choices for ourselves and people feel foolish especially if it happens to them more than once right like how do i keep doing this and it really is that your willingness to do that deep dive like what are the illusions and the delusions we fall into take responsibility for those try to find out where they come from but somebody abusing you is never your fault girl i could keep going i honestly could where can people find you you're freaking you're putting out videos every day now this is insane so where can people find all of that amazing stuff so you can go my youtube's a great place to start because there is content coming out every day and if there's anything you want to know about this it's probably already there and if you go subscribe to the channel and also get the notifications every day when it comes out a lot of people say this is sort of my morning coffee thing that i do um i have a website dr romini.com d-o-c-t-o-r-r-a-m-a-n-i dot com and there's that sort of like uh is everything in one place links to interesting articles and important things to know into videos and even other things that are related to the topic upcoming seminars that we have all of that is available there and so those would be the two places i would lead you can follow me on instagram follow me on facebook we have you know pretty regular content coming out there sharing other good stuff that people are putting out because there's a lot of interesting people doing interesting work if not specifically narcissism even in areas like domestic abuse and all of that that are all related to this topic yeah guys guys guys you have got to go check her out honestly be prepared because you're going to go through a really really deep rabbit hole once you start i'm just warning you now but you've got to go check out her stuff and if this episode brought you value please please do share like click that subscribe button down there and if you're not following me guys what are you doing follow me at lisaville.com oh [ __ ] i've now got a website in fact lisapinyou.com why lizzy would say so go over to there i'm so happy that i got a website and follow me at on instagram at lisaville and until next time guys be the hero of your own life [Music] what up peace thanks so much for watching this video if you'd like another dose of badassery make sure you watch this video right here because i know you'll like it but hey also while you're here guys you might as well click that subscribe button down there so you don't miss any future episodes and of course until next time be the hero of your own life peace out you

Channel: Lisa Bilyeu

Views: 1,929,164

Keywords: Dr. Ramani, Dr. Ramani Durvasula, Narcissism Expert, Clinical Psychologist, Lisa Bilyeu, Women of Impact, women, women empowerment, women to women, female empowerment, feminine, feminine energy, business woman, business women, interview, empower women, empowerment, narcissists, narcissism, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic, narcissistic personality disorder, covert narcissist, narcissistic abuse, what is a narcissist, narcissistic behavior, how to deal with a narcissist

Id: uwtwnIxSO9s

Length: 60min 17sec (3617 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021