Pointing out narcissistic traits to others

hi everyone it's Dr Romney welcome back to the YouTube channel on narcissism a lot of times you know I know we've always said never call a narcissist out never point out their toxic patterns to them right I think we're all pretty clear on that well this video is going to take on what happens when you point out the toxic traits in one person out to another person let's take this on this video came out of a email I got and I'm hoping I do it credit and how I'm explaining it here so let's say you're observing the behavior of a person close to you okay you're observing somebody close to you I should say a partner an adult child friend family member they're having an encounter with somebody they're sharing with you about an encounter they had with someone and the other person you were talking to so this person you care about was talking to another person that was toxic maybe that other person was gaslighting them or manipulating them or invalidating them or or just treating them as though they were somehow less than so you the empathic person you are and now aware of what narcissism is empathic person you are says something you say like I don't like how this person was talking to you and would you believe it you are quite likely to get nailed for being a nasty person for being mean or for bad-mouthing someone so you went from trying to be kind to someone the person you care about to becoming the bad one just like that what the hell is this about so if any of you grew up in a narcissistic family system especially if you are a truth teller or observed other truth-tellers in your family despite all the toxicity floating around if someone dared called out the toxic patterns that were in your midst they were often shut down right if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything which would effectively turn most narcissistic households into silent monasteries in which only the narcissistic people kept speaking and spewing their invalidating stuff on everyone this silencing of observations about unhealthy behavior is actually how a lot of intergenerational abuse gets perpetuated each generation gets the message that oh you shouldn't say such things so don't you shouldn't point out such things and so unless you are a masochist or just plain courageous or both you keep doing it and endure being told that you're a mean-spirited person or you simply distance from the system I don't know what other option you have otherwise to sit silently in the midst of that and watch all this happen which I also know many people do enablers and narcissistic folks are very quick to call any feedback about toxic traits they'll call it things like character assassinations witch hunts meanness however when the narcissistic people do their number on someone else they'll often say something like ah I don't have a filter you know that I don't mean it it's just a joke and then the enablers will pipe in and say oh you know how they are they never mean it their bark is worse than their bite people like the status quo it's the reason these long-term committed relationships and marriages Family cycles and even workplaces and friendships can often remain in unhealthy patterns for a really long time and they stay stagnated if there is no way for a person to offer constructive feedback so you can't say things like hey oh you know what I don't love the way your friends talk to you the way they talk to you is disrespectful or if you say something like come on your friend is always gaslighting you deserve better you're giving actually loving feedback and then they attack you now the way we give feedback does matter tempting though it may be there is no real win in rolling up to somebody and saying haha your mother's a narcissist run away from her or saying hey all your friends are a-holes dump them that's is not a good approach but instead compassionately focusing on unhealthy patterns and our concern for someone who's experiencing them or if it is happening to us to be able to say hey I don't like how your friend was talking to me now I think a major reason that so many people are suffering in these narcissistic relationships is because there's no end in sight if a person even tries to protect someone else from invalidating friends or family the person who is trying to do the protecting is often sort of labeled or identified as the bad one instead of the invalidating friends being the ones who are brought into question I've been in this situation many times and at this point I'm sort of resigned to people calling me demanding or too serious or some other lovely obscene terms it takes a toll I notice over the years that I do keep more to myself and save my feedback for YouTube instead of offering it to other people and figure out this at least at least some way someone's getting it here but that it's not always possible when we see these patterns happening to someone we care about calling out toxic patterns is not a character assassination now there's a way to do it by focusing on the behaviors and not on the on and not on the person instead of saying he's a jerk he's rude a better approach may be the way he keeps putting you down or keeps putting down the quality of your work that concerns me are you okay but usually people will just soft pedal that and say ah he doesn't mean nothing by it and just like that you can easily see how these patterns persist it still hurts though that when you're trying to protect someone you're the one who's framed as the person who's the problem I'll never be able to get my head fully around why people are so protective of narcissistic gaslighting or manipulative people in our midst maybe we don't want people putting our Behavior to a higher standard I don't know maybe we're struggling with our trauma bonds but I think mostly people don't want to interrupt the status quo I have to say that in the mental health profession this is a real problem and I have actually gotten my sternest pushbacks and rebukes from other mental health practitioners who will say talking about narcissistic behavior is defeatist and Dr Romney it's not empathic and I shudder to think that these folks may also be minimizing these experiences in their own clients these patterns are just not okay now listen none of this is ever going to change overnight but sometimes we just need to be validated if this is happening to you you need that validation so you don't feel like you're lost that your great transgression was that you pointed out to someone you care about that you don't like how someone is treating them and that you are the one who is labeled as the one who's engaging in a character assassination honestly after that happens to you once you gotta step back and say they're on their own if this is how they want to be talked to but the one place you can exert a boundary and say I don't know if I feel comfortable coming to this I don't like how those people behave and I don't like how they talk to you so you all have a good time I'm going to take a pass they're still going to have bad things to say about you but at least you've protected yourself thanks again

Channel: DoctorRamani

Views: 60,365

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Id: ZA7O3RGmhs8

Length: 8min 4sec (484 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 07 2022